Flight disruption eases as airport operations return to normal

Flight disruption that caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of passengers has eased, as airports said their operations have returned to normal.

A technical issue at National Air Traffic Services (Nats) caused more than 2,000 flights arriving or departing the UK to be cancelled following the fault on Tuesday.

After disruption continued on Wednesday at some airports as airlines dealt with knock-on impacts, Heathrow, London Stansted, Manchester and Gatwick all said Thursday’s operations are set to continue as normal.

British Airways (BA), which previously said the fault had forced it to cancel almost 550 flights that had impacted more than 85,000 passengers, said it expects to “operate a normal schedule” on Thursday.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday that she did not believe the air traffic control issue was “unavoidable”, while Downing Street said the Government still had confidence in Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe amid calls for his resignation.

Addressing the Commons, Ms Alexander said the disruption was caused by a “four-hour air traffic outage” and apologised “wholeheartedly” to affected passengers.

She said Mr Rolfe had informed her the outage was caused by a technical issue at Nats’ Swanwick site.

“So, while my understanding from Nats is that we can rule out a cyber attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable,” she said.

Among those calling for the Nats boss’ resignation is Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary. who said Mr Rolfe’s position was “untenable.”

Nats boss Martin Rolfe has faced calls to resign (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA)

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The air traffic services provider has apologised for disruption to passengers and airlines, for which Mr Rolfe said he took “full responsibility”.

On Thursday, transport minister Keir Mather said disruption to those travelling “raises really serious questions about contingency planning and resilience planning at our airports”.

“Conversations that I’m determined to take forward with the CAA, Nats, and with airlines and airports in the coming days,” he added.

BA previously said the airline has “long made the case for improved resilience in aviation” and issues raised by the system failure need “to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.

Passengers slept on the floors of airports amid the disruption (Jonathan Brady/PA)

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Some 2,145 flights were affected over the Tuesday and Wednesday, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.

Despite this, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has said passengers are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident”.

A CAA spokesperson said: “We consider that disruption caused by the Nats outage is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.

“This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.”

Passengers faced hours-long waits after flights were delayed and cancelled (Gareth Fuller/PA)

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Ms Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.

Nats also said a full investigation will be conducted into the issue.

On Thursday afternoon, Nats said the investigation was “already under way” and it would report to the Transport Secretary and CAA next week.

The air traffic controller reiterated its apology to all those affected by the incident, adding: “We are very much aware of the additional pressure this has placed on colleagues across the industry, and thank them for their continued hard work.”

Last July, a “radar-related issue” caused an air traffic control failure which disrupted thousands of passengers and forced the cancellation of more than 160 flights.

In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.