British Airways issues update on UK flights after US air traffic control meltdown

British Airways has issued an update passengers booked onto flights between the UK and US after air traffic control problems brought flights to a standstill across the States.

About 10,000 flights to and from the US were cancelled as a result of the a nationwide ground stop which lasted about four hours on Friday.

But in an update, British Airways said its flights were operating as normal having earlier apologised for possible delays and cancellations.

A spokesman said: “Whilst this matter was entirely outside of our control, we want to thank our customers for bearing with us, and our colleagues for supporting them and helping to minimise any disruption.”

Manchester Airport said there was not expected to be significant delays on Saturday and the situation had minimal impact on London Gatwick Airport.

It is only the second time flights have been grounded across the US since the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

Flights were halted by the FAA in January 2023 because of a system error.

US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that the introduction of some new technology into an old air traffic control system overwhelmed it. He could not rule out another outage.

People wait in a check-in line at the British Airways counter in Miami International Airport after the FAA announced a nationwide ground stop

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Mr Mullin added “it doesn’t appear” that a cyber attack or rogue artificial intelligence played a role in the incident.

American transportation secretary Sean Duffy said he expected flights around the US to be “back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel” next weekend ahead of the American Thanksgiving holiday, but he also suggested more disruptions might occur.

“We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage. We did,” he said.

“We were able to review what went wrong, and then reboot the system and go. But, you will have more of these.”