Hundreds of flights across Europe were canceled on Monday after Britain’s air traffic control service experienced a “technical issue” that caused widespread disruption on one of the country’s busiest travel days of the year.
More than 200 flights leaving Britain were cancelled, according to Cirium, the aviation analytics company, including 271 scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday. Many other flights will be delayed for more than eight hours, “which will inevitably result in a cancellation,” Cirium added.
NATS, Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, said a technical problem affected its ability to automatically process flight plans, meaning information had to be entered manually, slowing the process.
While British airspace was not closed at any time, NATS restricted the number of flights leaving the airports to maintain safety while its engineers tried to fix the problem. At about 3 pm local time NATS said it had resolved the issue, but noted that air traffic remained disrupted. The British government has a 49 percent stake in NATS, which is a public-private partnership.
The delays hit a particularly heavy travel season, as people return from summer vacations or extended trips on Britain’s “bank holiday” Monday, or national day off. Customers are advised to check their flight status before traveling to airports.
Thousands of holidaymakers have spent hours stuck at airports or on runway tarmac, facing long delays or uncertain departure times.
In Palma de Mallorca, Jon Hughes, 49, boarded a plane to the English city of Leeds at around 1pm local time with his two children, aged 13 and 15. Once on board, he said, he was told them that the plane has already boarded. allocated a departure slot in about seven hours.
“It’s very hot and the children are restless,” he said in one message. “We don’t know how long we will be stuck on the plane. Or even if we go home now.”
British budget airline Jet2 said the issue had caused significant delays to “all flights departing and returning to the UK”.
Low-cost airline Ryanair said it was being forced to delay and cancel flights to and from Britain on Monday. Passengers can change flights or receive a full refund, it said in a statement.
Jamie Steele, 39, a British nurse who had returned to Manchester from a holiday in the Italian city of Pisa, was due to leave at 10.30 am local time. Four hours later, he was still sitting in the plane on the tarmac. The pilot told passengers the plane would have a departure slot in the next three hours, but added he was “not sure he trusted the time given.”
“It’s hard not knowing what time we’re going home,” said Mr. Steele in a message.
Heathrow Airport, near London, advised passengers to contact their airline before going there, and Edinburgh Airport told passengers not to go before checking the status of their flight.
Louise Haigh, the lawmaker in charge of transport policy for the opposition Labor Party, described the disturbance on social media as “extremely concerning for passengers” on “one of the busiest days of the year.” He added that he was surprised that the government’s minister for transport had not yet made a statement.
Scottish airline Loganair warned on social media that there had been “a network-wide failure of the UK air traffic control computer system this morning”.
The number of flight departures over the three-day holiday weekend is scheduled to be 10 percent higher than the same period last year, according to Cirium, and 83 percent higher than in 2021, when the Covid pandemic -19 has greatly reduced air travel. .
The disruption is expected to have little impact on overall operations for US airlines, which together had more than 140 scheduled flights to or from Britain on Monday.
Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst, said the backlog of flights will cause flight delays for several days.
“That’s probably the worst time given that it’s the end of August, which is usually one of the busiest weeks of the calendar year,” he said.
Mr. Macheras said that compared to last summer, when there were many cancellations and delays, air travel this summer in Britain and Europe had been “smooth sailing” until Monday.
Flights to Europe were delayed for several hours in December 2014 due to a technical problem at the NATS air traffic control center in Swanwick, England.
@Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting.
