2023-08-29 10:18:44
Time.news – It was a Monday of passion and it will be one tiring Tuesday at British airportsafter a ‘technical problem’ affecting the UK’s air traffic control systems grounded or caused delays to hundreds of flights.
Airlines and airports have warned that there are still “significant delays” although the problem was solved in a few hours and the chain inconvenience could last for days.
Heathrow said late Monday evening that departure times would not be respected and advised departing passengers to contact their airline before heading to the airport. Even Gatwick, which however plans to operate normallyadvised passengers to check the status of their flight before going to the airport. London Luton Airport also experienced delays and cancellations on Monday evening.
The damage
The fault occurred just after noon on Monday, and by 3.15pm local time it had been identified and resolved. British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and TUI flights have been delayed or cancelled. Ryanair was forced to delay or cancel some flights, and Jet2 said significant delays are expected on all of its flights to and from the UK, but that passengers will be able to go to the airport as normal today unless stated otherwise.
According to aeronautics expert Sally Gethin, heard by the BBC, “the airlines will have big headaches now to bring the planes back to normal schedule. We will see considerable inconvenience in the next few hours and for some people, there could be a knock-on effect through to the end of this week.”
Cirium, an aviation data company, calculated that 3,049 flights were due to depart on Monday from UK airports and a further 3,054 flights were due to arrive. As of 2.30pm local time, 232 outbound flights, 8% of all departures and 271, or 9%, of inbound flights had been cancelled.
Passenger rights
Transport Secretary Mark Harper advised passengers to read the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s guidelines to be aware of their rights when flights are delayed or cancelled. The CAA says an airline has a duty of care to provide food, drink and lodging if delays extend overnight.
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If a flight is cancelled, passengers should be given the option to choose between a refund or alternative travel arrangements as early as possible.
The Liberal Democrats have asked the prime minister to convene the Cobra emergency response committee, while Labor said the incident was “extremely worrying”.
According to Nats, the flight control agency, a “scheduling problem” affected the system’s ability to automatically process flight plans that were processed manually, which cannot be done with the same volume, hence the requirement for traffic flow restrictions. Director of Operations Juliet Kennedy apologized for the disruption and announced an investigation into the incident. (Time.news)
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