The U.K.’s air traffic control agency said Monday it was restricting flights in and out of the country as it experiences a “technical issue,” leading to nationwide delays and cancellations as millions of people travel during the holiday weekend.
The U.K.'s air traffic control agency restricted flights in and out of the country amid a "technical ... [+]
The National Air Traffic Service said Monday it was “experiencing a technical issue” and “applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety,” adding its engineers were “working to find and fix the fault.”
Eurocontrol—the European Union’s air control organization—said Britain was experiencing a “flight data processing system failure” that would cause “very high individual delays.”
It is unknown when the issue will be resolved, according to Eurocontrol, which said: “No improvements for flights entering U.K. airspace are foreseen in the near future.”
London’s Heathrow Airport had 32% of its flights delayed as of 9:15 a.m. EST, in addition to 33% of flights delayed at London Gatwick Airport, according to FlightAware.
Several airlines have said they were impacted by the restrictions, including Loganair—which said there was a “network-wide outage of air traffic control systems”—and Aer Lingus, which said it was facing “severe restrictions on all flights into the U.K. and flying over U.K. airspace today.”
3,049. That’s how many flights were scheduled to depart U.K.-based airports on Monday, according to the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The Association of British Travel Agents said Friday it was expecting more than 4.5 million people to travel overseas during the U.K.’s bank holiday on Monday. NATS previously restricted flights in 2014, after the Swanswick-based agency said it experienced a computer failure. The issue—initially defined as a “technical issue”—was resolved hours later, though hundreds of flights in and out of London-based airports were impacted by cancellations and delays.
U.K. Airports Hit By Flight Delays Over ‘Technical Issue’ (New York Times)
U.K. Air Traffic ‘Technical Issues’ Causes Delays Across Europe (Reuters)