Anna Hartz
Technical failure disrupts flights across London airports
Air travel can quickly be thrown into chaos when air traffic control systems stop working properly. That is what happened in the UK on Tuesday, with passengers facing long delays at several major London airports.
Problems with departing flights
The National Air Traffic Services, known as NATS, said it was investigating a technical problem in the air traffic control system. The issue was reported shortly before 2 p.m. and was causing problems with departing flights, according to el Economista.
NATS said its engineers were working to fix the problem. The agency apologized to passengers and advised them to check with their airlines for the latest information about their flights.
Heathrow and Gatwick were among the airports most affected. Flight tracking data showed major delays at both airports during the afternoon.
Some flights were eventually able to leave Heathrow, but several were more than two hours late. Many other flights from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City were still delayed or had not left by the afternoon.
Heathrow said the technical problem was not directly affecting arriving flights. The airport said it was working with the local NATS team to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
Problems outside UK
The disruption was also causing problems beyond the UK. Eurocontrol, the European organisation responsible for coordinating air traffic, said some flights heading towards London were being held at their departure airports.
The move was intended to reduce pressure on British airspace while the problem was being dealt with.
Eurocontrol warned that the disruption could continue to affect airspace over London, southern England and Wales until around 9 p.m.
Passengers were advised to check their flight status before travelling to the airport. Airlines were also dealing with changing departure times as the situation developed.
The latest disruption comes just over a year after another major problem affected air travel in Britain. That incident was linked to radar systems and resulted in hundreds of flight cancellations and delays.
Tuesday’s incident shows how quickly a technical failure in air traffic control can affect thousands of passengers. Even when airports remain open, problems with the systems that manage flights can cause delays across a much wider area.
For travellers, the situation means checking directly with airlines is especially important while engineers continue working to restore normal operations.
