Air Traffic Chaos: Tech Glitch Grounds UK Flights
A technical failure in the UK's air traffic control system caused major disruptions at several airports, including London's Heathrow and Gatwick. Services resumed after four hours, but airlines faced severe delays and diversions. Ryanair demanded resignation of NATS' CEO for repeated failures.
A significant technical fault in the UK's air traffic control system led to widespread flight delays over a four-hour window, affecting major airports such as London's Heathrow and Gatwick. The problem has since been resolved, and air traffic operations have returned to normal schedules.
The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) confirmed that departures had resumed, while apologizing for the inconvenience caused to both passengers and airlines. The incident drew sharp criticism from Ryanair, which described the delay as 'utterly unacceptable' and called for the resignation of NATS' CEO, Martin Rolfe.
Amid continued fallout from the disruption, there's a renewed focus on NATS' contingency planning. This comes after an outage in August 2023 triggered widespread delays and prompted calls for improved system resilience from the UK's aviation regulator.
(With inputs from agencies.)
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