The chaos at airports including Heathrow and Gatwick is to continue after a tech glitch on Tuesday caused the cancellation of thousands of flights.
Passengers at London airports Heathrow and Gatwick have been warned of further delays after the technical failure on Tuesday at a facility run by NATS, the British air traffic control system.
Flight tracking platform Flightradar24 said 1,300 flights were cancelled at airports across the UK on Tuesday. A further 177 cancellations had been recorded by Wednesday – almost all of them at Heathrow.
NATS has now resolved the issue but said the recovery had taken “longer than we had hoped”.
Both Heathrow and Gatwick said flights had resumed but urged passengers to check whether their flights were still scheduled. Flights that are going ahead face longer wait times.
“Following yesterday’s NATS technical issue, flights are operating today, but some disruption may continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crew,” Heathrow posted on X.
“Please check your flight status with your airline before travelling to the airport and only travel if your flight is confirmed to be operating.”
The airline most affected by the glitch was easyJet followed by British Airways, Ryanair, KLM and Eurowings.
Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon called for the removal of NATS boss Martin Rolfe and demanded that the Government intervene to fix what he called the UK’s “chronic” air traffic control issues.