(Affected Flights. Photo by Yahoo Finance UK)
Thousands of UK travellers faced another rough day Wednesday as over 150 flights got cancelled across the country.
This came after air traffic control suffered a technical problem that caused major disruptions on Tuesday, when 1,300 flights were axed.
Most of the cancelled flights on Wednesday were at Heathrow, London’s biggest airport.
The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which runs the UK’s air traffic control, said it was still dealing with the fallout from the system failure.
They described it as a complex recovery that would take time to sort out.
Britain’s Transport Secretary was set to meet with NATS leadership Wednesday to discuss what went wrong.
The NATS boss acknowledged his responsibility for the chaos but wouldn’t say if he planned to step down.
The Transport Secretary said she wanted guarantees that the right lessons were being learned and that these systems were working properly.
However, Ryanair’s chief operating officer called for NATS leadership to be replaced, saying they had let down UK travellers again and demanding government action to put someone more competent in charge.
Heathrow said flights started departing again late Tuesday after the technical issue forced them to halt arrivals.
They warned passengers that disruptions would continue and advised people to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.
British Airways warned of knock-on effects from the cancellations, which had disrupted tens of thousands of its customers.
NATS said it had fixed the problem and was working to clear the backlog of grounded aircraft.
The chaos affected airports across the UK including Gatwick, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh, with Dublin Airport in Ireland also cancelling dozens of flights.
Ryanair alone had more than 65,000 passengers disrupted and scrapped over 50 flights.
One healthcare worker described the situation at Gatwick as an absolute nightmare after being stuck on a runway for three hours before having to leave her flight to Ireland.
Arsenal football club had to cancel a news conference ahead of a Champions League match in Italy after their team flight got delayed.
