Transport secretary to quiz air traffic control boss over disruption

Airlines are demanding answers from the air traffic control (ATC) provider NATS after a system outage grounded flights across the UK.

NATS, which has apologised, said it had taken 20 minutes to resolve the issue by switching to a back-up system.

It resulted in more than 150 flights being cancelled and thousands more being grounded on Wednesday.

Ten flights on Thursday morning to and from Heathrow Airport were cancelled - four departures and six arrivals, according to the airport's website.

A spokesperson for Stansted Airport said all flights were operating as normal on Thursday morning following Wednesday's disruption.

A Gatwick Airport spokesperson said operations were "stable" on Thursday morning.

EasyJet said the error was "extremely disappointing", while a Ryanair executive called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign.

According to NATS, the issue was "radar-related" and it reduced flight traffic to ensure safety. It added there was no evidence the incident had been cyber-related.

The government said it was "working closely" with NATS to understand what had gone wrong.

Ryanair executive Neal McMahon said it was "outrageous that passengers were once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe's continued mismanagement" of NATS.

Referring to a previous incident two years ago, Mr McMahon said it was clear "no lessons" had been learnt and passengers continued to "suffer" as a result of Mr Rolfe's "incompetence".

In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers were affected by the cancellation of more than 500 flights at the UK's busiest airports due to a major outage.

EasyJet's chief operating officer, David Morgan, said: "It's extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel."

"We will want to understand from NATS what steps they are taking to ensure issues don't continue," he added.

Graham Lake, a former director general of the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation, said he understood that airlines were angry about the disruption, but technological failures should be expected in any industry.

"The failure yesterday was short and sweet … aircraft were operating again very very quickly," he told the BBC's Today programme.

Mr Lake said it was not fair to call for the boss of NATS to resign over the failure, as the organisation got the system back up and running "as safely and quickly as it could".

Travel expert Simon Calder told BBC Breakfast there would be "thousands of people who are waking up where they did not expect to be this morning".

He warned that disruption from Wednesday's outage would continue in the coming days as airlines attempt to get stranded passengers, as well as planes and crew, to their intended destinations during the busy summer holiday schedule.

"The trouble is, at this time of year everything is stretched, all the airlines are running to maximum efficiency, very little slack in the system, very few spare seats to accommodate passengers whose flights were cancelled in the hundreds," he said.

Sarah McPherson's son was meant to compete with England's under 15 boys international touch rugby team in Ireland, and she said she was "feeling pretty angry".

"He is so very disappointed and at this stage we don't know if there will be another flight," she added.

Jonathan Carr from Stourbridge was trying to get to Norway for his brother's wedding. He told the BBC it was "stressful" that his flight was cancelled but he hoped to arrive in Bodø late on Thursday.

"It's really frustrating," said Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of Advantage Travel Partnership. "We need to ensure there's sufficient resilience built into critical infrastructure that doesn't impact businesses, that doesn't impact travellers."

Under UK law, airlines have a duty to look after passengers if flights are delayed or cancelled, including providing meals and accommodation, if necessary, and getting people to their destination. The airline should also organise an alternative flight at no extra cost.

However, disruption caused by things such as a fire, bad weather, strikes by airport or air traffic control staff, or other "extraordinary circumstances" does not entitle passengers to extra compensation.

According to flight data firm Cirium, 84 departures and 71 arrivals were cancelled across all UK airports on Wednesday evening. That equates to 3% of all departures and 2% of all arrivals.

In addition a number of flights had to be diverted to European airports, it said.

Cirium does not attribute causes for cancellations, so some may not have been due to the air traffic outage.