On Wednesday, air traffic was briefly interrupted on Wednesday in the United Kingdom after a “technical problem”, according to the British air traffic control service (NATS), an incident that led to the suspension of several flights, but the affected system “was restored.”
“We are assuming our normal activities in the London region,” Nats said on platform X, before presenting his “excuses for incredible discomfort.” The London airports of Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as those of Edinburgh, were affected. Heathrow is the busiest air center in Europe.
Gatwick, who had announced shortly before having suspended all the outputs “while the situation was resolved,” he also confirmed the resumption of operations, but warns that there will be delays. He said the problem affected “all flights from the United Kingdom.”
According to Cirium, the aeronautical data provider, 67 exits and 55 arrivals were canceled at 7:30 pm, while a certain number of flights also confused. Ryanair’s director of Operations, Neal McMahon, requested the resignation of NATS director, Martin Rolfe, due to this collapse. “It is scandalous that passengers are once again victims of delays and disturbances,” he said.
“Extremely disappointing”
His Easyjet counterpart, David Morgan, said it was “extremely disappointing” to see a collapse again “disturb our clients during this period of the year so important and charged for traveling.”
“If our priority is to help our customers today, we want NATS to explain the measures needed to prevent this type of problem from happening again,” he added.
A spokesman for the Department of Transportation said that “he worked closely” with the NATS to understand the cause of the problem that said, according to him, a control center in Swanwick, in the southwest of England.
In March, a fire in an electric post caused a collapse at Heathrow Airport in London, one of the busiest in the world, which had remained closed all day. The incident had caused chain alterations to world air traffic, with hundreds of abolished or confused flights.
At the end of August 2023, a giant breakdown of air traffic control interrupted the return to the United Kingdom of thousands of travelers after a long holiday weekend, forcing aerial officers to manually return flight plans manually. Almost 2,000 flights were canceled for two days.
Source: BFM TV
