More than 400 flights to and from airports across the UK were cancelled on Monday after a technical failure at the country’s air traffic control service disrupted departures and left thousands of passengers stranded.
By 5 p.m., about 425 flights had reportedly been cancelled, with major disruptions recorded at Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Stansted, East Midlands, Jersey and several other airports.
According to FlightRadar24, easyJet cancelled 137 flights, British Airways 111, KLM 26, Eurowings 22 and Ryanair 21.
Some passengers travelling from London to Shanghai were reportedly diverted to Cardiff as airspace over the capital became increasingly congested. Gatwick and Heathrow temporarily suspended departures, although Heathrow said arriving flights were not affected.
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said the disruption was caused by problems with its flight processing system at the Swanwick control centre.
“We are investigating a technical issue which is causing some disruption to flight departures. Our engineers are on site, and we will provide an update as soon as we can,” NATS said, warning that resolving the issue could take some time.
Heathrow Airport also confirmed that the technical problem was affecting departing flights across the UK, while noting that arriving flights remained unaffected at the time.
Passengers reported being left waiting for hours on aircraft as airlines sought clearance to take off.
Jay Davis, 26, who was travelling from Stansted to San Sebastian with his girlfriend, Katie Hastie, said they spent almost three hours on the tarmac before eventually being asked to leave the aircraft and return the following morning.
“We have no idea when we’re taking off. They are threatening to boot us all out but can’t guarantee what happens to our luggage,” he said.
At Heathrow, another passenger, Nisha Lahiri, 46, said she had remained on a British Airways aircraft for more than two and a half hours after its scheduled 2 p.m. departure.
“We boarded and have been waiting on the aircraft since then. I’m going for a family wedding in two days,” she told the BBC.
The disruption also affected Manchester City supporters travelling to Porto for the club’s Champions League match.
Ryanair strongly criticised NATS over the failure, with its Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, describing it as “yet another UK ATC system failure” and calling on the government to take action.
Several airports, including Belfast City, Birmingham, Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands, confirmed that flights had been affected.
Birmingham Airport said the technical issue was affecting airspace in southern Britain and causing wider disruption across the country.
Jersey Airport also reported delays linked to the same problem, while travellers experienced disruptions at Luton, Cardiff, Exeter and Bristol.
The widespread technical failure left thousands of passengers facing cancellations, lengthy delays and uncertain travel arrangements as NATS engineers worked to restore normal operations.
