London, Britain – Flights from British airports resumed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after a widespread disruption to the air traffic control system caused the cancellation of about 1,300 flights to and from British airports on Tuesday. The repercussions of the disruption continued with the cancellation of an additional 177 flights on Wednesday, most of them at London’s Heathrow Airport, according to the Flightradar24 website.
Flights resume as disruptions continue
Heathrow Airport announced the resumption of departure flights, but warned travelers of continued disruptions, urging them to contact their airlines and confirm their flight times before heading to the airport.
The outage, which lasted for hours and was linked to the air traffic control system, left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded, amid increasing pressure on NATS, the company responsible for air navigation services.
Widespread impact on airlines
NATS said the recovery process from the disruption was “extremely complex,” noting that its effects extended across the entire aviation network. Major airports affected included Heathrow, Gatwick, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Edinburgh, as well as Dublin Airport in Ireland.
British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of its passengers, while Ryanair announced that more than 65,000 passengers were affected and more than 50 flights were cancelled.
The unrest spreads to Arsenal
The disruption was not limited to travelers and airlines, but extended to the sports sector, after Arsenal was forced to cancel a press conference scheduled before their Champions League match against Napoli, due to the team’s flight to Italy being delayed.
The widespread outage has reopened questions about the reliability of Britain’s air traffic control systems and their ability to deal with technical failures, while airports and airlines have warned that restoring normal travel may take additional time.
