Air traffic descended into chaos on Wednesday afternoon (July 30) when flights were held at London Gatwick and London Heathrow, as well as a host of other UK airports, due to a “technical issue”. While the problem has now been resolved, passengers are still likely to face major delays. Airports in Amsterdam, Paris, and Brussels are also expected to be hit by knock-on effects.
NATS posted on social media at approximately 4.35pm: “Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon. We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area. We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.” Many of the world’s major airlines have now begun to release statements regarding the incident. A British Airways spokesperson told the Telegraph: “Like all airlines, we are dealing with the impact of an Air Traffic Control issue that is affecting the vast majority of our flights. Whilst this is entirely outside of our control, we want to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience and assure them that our teams are working hard to get their journeys back on track as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, easyJet said: “An earlier technical issue at the NATS air traffic control centre today has been causing disruption to flights to and from the UK.
“We are advising customers travelling this evening to check our Flight Tracker for the most up to date information on their flight and are contacting all impacted customers directly.
“While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the ATC failure.”
Ryanair’s COO, Neal McMahon, issued a fiery statement targeting the head of NATS. It read: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of NATS. Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers travel plans have been disrupted.
“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the Aug’23 NATS system outage and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.
“If NATS CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest NATS system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK Transport Minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of NATS’s shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent NATS failures.”
Separately, Virgin Atlantic, said: “Due to a technical issue at Nats Swanwick air traffic control, some UK arrivals and departures are subject to delays and disruption.
“We apologise in advance to customers who may be affected.”
The Express has also contacted TUI and Jet2 for comment.