London: Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) said it had “identified and remedied” a technical issue which affected its flight planning system on Monday, causing widespread disruption across Europe to flights using UK airspace.
“We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system’s performance as we return to normal operations,” NATS said in a statement.
Earlier NATS was forced to restrict the flow of aircraft, with airlines and airports warning of delays and cancellations.
Scottish airline Loganair said on social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that there had been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems, warning international flights may face delays.
London Luton Airport said it was working with the authorities to "understand the impact and the timescale for normal operations to resume", while British Airways also said it was working closely with NATS to understand the impact.
Dublin Airport said the air traffic control issues were resulting in delays and cancellations to some flights into and out of the Irish capital and advised passengers due to travel today to check the status of their flight with their airline in advance.
Several passengers took to social media to say they were stuck on planes on the tarmac waiting to take off on what is a busy travel day due to Monday's public holiday in parts of Britain.
One Reuters witness being held on the tarmac at Budapest said their pilot told passengers that a massive computer failure had closed all UK airspace and they faced an 8-12 hour delay.
