A technical glitch affecting Britain’s air traffic control system has disrupted hundreds of flights across the UK, with authorities ruling out a cyberattack as the cause.
Nearly 400 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, adding to the 1,746 cancellations recorded a day earlier after the outage hit the UK’s air traffic control service.
More than 330,000 passengers were affected over the two days, according to industry body Airlines UK. Of these, around 155,000 had their flights cancelled while about 180,000 experienced delays.
The disruption was particularly severe at London Heathrow, one of Europe’s busiest airports, where most of Wednesday’s cancellations involved flights to and from the airport.
National Air Traffic Services (Nats) chief executive Martin Rolfe said the organisation had ruled out cyber activity as the cause of the incident.
“We don’t believe it was a cyberattack,” Rolfe told BBC Radio, adding that Nats would carry out a “very, very thorough” investigation into what caused the technical failure.
British Airways said it cancelled nearly 550 flights because of the disruption, including 200 on Wednesday, affecting around 85,000 of its customers.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs that she did not believe the disruption was “unavoidable” and has ordered an independent review into the incident. The review is expected to report within six months.
Rolfe said he accepted “full responsibility” for the disruption but declined to say whether he was considering resigning. Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon had earlier called for Rolfe to be fired, accusing him of having “failed UK travellers”.
Passengers described chaotic scenes at affected airports, with some reporting hours-long waits on aircraft, difficulty collecting luggage and a shortage of nearby hotel rooms.
Matt Ernster, 28, who was travelling from Paris to Boston via Heathrow after his honeymoon, said he spent more than five hours on the aircraft before being allowed to disembark.
“It was the worst travel experience I’ve ever had,” he told AFP.
Healthcare worker Josie Donoghue, who was travelling through London Gatwick, described the disruption as “an absolute nightmare” after being stuck on the runway for three hours before having to leave her flight to Ireland.
Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports were also affected, mainly on Tuesday, while Dublin Airport reported dozens of cancellations.
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected, with 50 flights cancelled, most of them on Tuesday.
Passengers affected by the disruption are unlikely to receive compensation as the outage may be considered an “extraordinary circumstance” under passenger rights rules, according to the aviation regulator.
