UK air traffic control fault
Flight chaos will ‘last for days’ following today’s air traffic control faults, an aviation expert has warned.
More than 500 flights to and from the UK have been cancelled following a “technical issue” with air traffic control.
The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the country’s leading provider of air traffic control services, said controllers are having to input flight plans manually due to a fault with its systems.
It apologised for the disruption caused by the failure, which is causing significant delays at UK airports. Shortly after 3.30pm, NATS said the technical issue had been “identified and remedied”.
The BBC has reported more than 500 UK flights, 232 departing and 271 arriving, have been cancelled as of 2.30pm according to data collated by aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Many more are likely to be delayed with passengers told to expect waits on the tarmac of up to 12 hours.
Today’s travel chaos will be ‘very thoroughly’ investigated, the Operations Director of NATS has said.
In a video statement released this evening, Juliet Kennedy said: ‘First of all, I would like to apologise for the impact on people’s travel plans today.
“The issue we had earlier meant that our automatic system, which provides controllers with details of every aircraft and its route, wasn’t working.
“Instead, to manage safety, we had to limit the number of flights we could manage.
“Our teams worked hard to resolve the problem and I’m pleased to say it was fixed earlier on this afternoon.
“However, it will take some time for flights to return to normal and we will continue to work with the airlines and the airports to recover the situation.
“Our absolute priority is safety and we will be investigating very thoroughly what happened today.
“Again, I would like to apologise for the impact on the travelling public and to tell you that our teams will continue to work to get you on your way as soon as we can.”
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