More than 150 flights across the United Kingdom got canceled on Wednesday as British airports faced another day of major travel problems. The disruption came one day after a computer issue caused problems with the country’s air traffic control system.
Flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 reported that airlines had already scrapped 177 Wednesday flights. Almost all of these cancellations happened at Heathrow,(Britain’s busiest airport). The trouble followed an even bigger wave of disruption on Tuesday, when airlines cancelled about 1,300 flights to and from UK airports.
The National Air Traffic Services known as NATS, runs the computer systems that guide planes through British skies. NATS said late Tuesday that it was still working hard to fix problems caused by a systematics error. NATS also posted a statement on X that it would take time to help airlines and airports return to normal because the problem had affected the entire aviation system.
Heathrow said departures had started moving again late Tuesday, after the technical issue first forced the airport to stop all arriving flights. However, officials warned that delays could continue and advised passengers to check with their airlines before going to the airport.
NATS later said it had fixed the issue and was working as fast as possible to deal with the large number of delayed and canceled flights. The organization also apologized to affected passengers and said it understood how frustrating the disruption had been.
This is not the first time this kind of failure has hit British air travel. A similar technical issue struck the same system in July last year, canceling dozens of flights and drew criticism from airline leaders. Back in 2023, Britain suffered its worst air traffic failure that affected more than 700,000 passengers after airlines delayed or cancelled hundreds of flights.
Passengers shared their frustration as travel problems caused major delays at UK airports. Healthcare worker Josie Donoghue said the situation at Gatwick was a nightmare after she spent three hours stuck on the runway before leaving her plane. She said moving through the airport felt like trying to escape from Alcatraz prison.
Beyond Heathrow and Gatwick, the disruption also affected airports in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. Even Dublin Airport in Ireland reported canceling dozens of flights connected to the UK disruption.
Major airlines were also badly affected by the disruption. British Airways said it canceled or changed the routes of more than 100 flights causing problems for thousands of passengers. Irish budget airline Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected, while the airline canceled over 50 flights.
The disruption even reached professional sports. Arsenal football club had to cancel its pre-match news conference after the team’s flight was badly delayed by the air traffic problems.
British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she wanted assurances that officials would learn real lessons from the failure and make sure aviation systems can work properly in the future.
Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer repeated his call for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to be removed from his position. McMahon said the latest problems showed another failure under Rolfe’s leadership and urged the UK government to replace him with someone better suited to run the air traffic control service.
