NATS chaos: Air traffic meltdown cancels 1,300 plus UK flights in two days

UK TRAVELLERS faced fury and fresh chaos on Wednesday as more than 150 further flights were scrapped, adding to the 1,300 cancellations racked up a day earlier, after Britain's air traffic control service was hit by a technical glitch that ripped through the country's aviation network.

Aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24 said 177 flights scheduled for Wednesday had already been axed on top of Tuesday's 1,300 cancellations to and from UK airports.

Nearly all the latest affected flights were at Britain's busiest airport Heathrow in London, FlightRadar24 wrote on X.

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The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) admitted it was still scrambling to resolve disruption following a "system issue" that has thrown the entire network into disarray. "This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover," NATS said in an X post late Tuesday.

The scale of the failure has piled pressure on NATS boss Martin Rolfe, with British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander set to confront him on Wednesday. Rolfe told Sky News he accepted "full responsibility" but refused to say whether he was considering quitting his job.

Alexander said earlier on X she was "seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job".

But Ryanair COO Neal McMahon went further, repeating his demand for Rolfe to be fired and accusing him of having again "failed UK travellers". "Enough is enough, it's time for the UK government to intervene... and put somebody in charge who can do the job," he said.

Heathrow said late Tuesday that departures had resumed after the "technical issue" forced the airport to suspend arrivals entirely. But it warned "disruption is expected to continue", telling passengers to check with their airline before travelling to the airport.

British Airways warned of a "significant knock-in impact" from the cancellations, which have already affected tens of thousands of its customers.

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NATS insisted it had "resolved" the glitch and was "working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights". "We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly," the organisation wrote on X.

This is not the first time NATS has plunged the network into chaos. The latest meltdown follows a technical glitch in July last year that saw scores of flights to and from the UK cancelled, and comes just two years after Britain's worst air systems failure in years, when more than 700,000 passengers were hit by delays and cancellations in 2023.

For passengers on the ground, the disruption has been brutal. Healthcare worker Josie Donoghue said it was "an absolute nightmare" at Gatwick, after being forced to disembark her flight to Ireland following three hours stuck on the runway. "Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz," she told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency.

The damage has spread far beyond Heathrow. Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports were also hit, while Dublin Airport in Ireland cancelled dozens of flights. Ryanair alone said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted, with over 50 of its flights cancelled outright.

Even football was not spared: Arsenal, due to play Napoli in the Champions League Wednesday in the southern Italian city, were forced to cancel a pre-match news conference after the team's own flight was delayed.

(With inputs from agencies)