Travellers across the UK woke up to fresh flight cancellations on Wednesday as the country’s air traffic service continued struggling to recover from a major technical problem. Tracking site FlightRadar24 reported that 177 flights had already been scrapped for the day, coming right after more than 1,300 cancellations the previous day.
Most of the latest cancellations hit Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport. The National Air Traffic Services, known as Nats, confirmed it was still dealing with the aftermath of a system issue. In a late Tuesday update, Nats described the recovery as very complex and said the entire aviation network would need time to return to normal.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander planned to meet Nats chief Martin Rolfe on Wednesday. Rolfe told Sky News he accepted full responsibility for the disruption but would not say whether he planned to step down. Alexander earlier stated she wanted clear assurances that lessons would be learned and that systems supporting aviation were reliable.
Ryanair’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon again called for Rolfe to be removed, saying he had failed UK travellers once more and that the government needed to put someone capable in charge. Heathrow confirmed departures had restarted after arrivals were suspended, yet warned passengers that disruption would continue and urged everyone to check with their airline before heading to the airport.
British Airways reported a significant knock-on impact affecting tens of thousands of its customers. Nats said the original glitch had been fixed and teams were working hard to clear the backlog of delayed flights, offering an unreserved apology for the frustration caused.
This latest incident follows a similar technical failure in July last year and the much larger systems collapse in 2023 that left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded. Passengers described scenes of long queues and stranded travellers. One healthcare worker called the situation at Gatwick an absolute nightmare after spending three hours on the runway before being forced to disembark. Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh and even Dublin Airport also felt the effects, with Ryanair alone reporting more than 65,000 passengers disrupted and over 50 of its flights cancelled. Even Arsenal’s Champions League trip was affected when the team’s flight delay forced the cancellation of a planned press conference.
