Flight delays to continue following bank holiday air traffic control chaos

Flight disruption that hit thousands of passengers on bank holiday Monday (August 28) looks set to persist for days as airports and airlines try to get schedules back on track.

There were long delays and cancellations after National Air Traffic Services (Nats) restricted the number of planes landing because of a “technical fault” with its flight planning system.

Reports said more than 500 flights were cancelled by early afternoon and hundreds more delayed.

Nats confirmed the problem just after midday on Monday then announced at 3.15pm that the issue had been “identified and remedied”.

“The flight planning issue affected the system’s ability to automatically process flight plans, meaning that flight plans had to be processed manually which cannot be done at the same volume, hence the requirement for traffic flow restrictions,” it said.

On Monday evening, Juliet Kennedy, Nats operations director, issued a video statement in which she apologised for the disruption.

She added: “It will take some time for flights to return to normal, and we will continue to work with the airlines and the airports to recover the situation.

“Our absolute priority is safety, and we will be investigating very thoroughly what happened today.”

A statement from Heathrow warned that schedules remained “significantly disrupted” and asked that people “to only travel to the airport if their flight is confirmed as still operating”.

Gatwick said it was planning to operate a normal schedule on Tuesday, but urged passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline before going to the airport.

Stansted also anticipates a normal schedule on Tuesday but said its terminal may be “busier than anticipated” because of the disruption.

Luton airport also said on Monday evening that flights across UK airspace remained subject to delays and cancellation, and people should check with airlines for the status of their flight.

Airlines hit by the chaos include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Jet2, easyJet, Ryanair and Tui.

*This article was written by Samantha Mayling of Travel Weekly *