A technical failure in UK’s air traffic control system forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights over two days, disrupting operations at 15 airports including Heathrow and stranding passengers on Indian carriers’ London routes.
On Wednesday, 291 flights — 120 departures and 171 arrivals — were cancelled at UK airports, about 5% of the 5,869 scheduled, aviation analytics company Cirium said. Cancellations on a normal day run between 1% and 2%. Tuesday was worse, with about 30.1% of 5,800 scheduled flights cancelled or not operated. Seven of the 24 flights scheduled from India to the UK had been cancelled as of 4pm on Wednesday, Cirium said. Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora, a passenger on the Mumbai flight, said he had spent nearly 24 hours stranded at Amsterdam airport. The government, which owns 49% of NATS, said Rolfe retains its confidence.
Airlines demanded that NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe consider resigning after the second air traffic breakdown in three years.
“Basically, we are technically in transit because the flight got diverted, so the airline can’t really offload one passenger’s bag,” he said. A public transport strike in the Netherlands had also ruled out taking a train to London, he said. Rolfe apologised for the disruption but said the UK system remains among the world’s safest and most efficient.
IndiGo’s Mumbai-London service 6E001 was diverted to Amsterdam on Tuesday and its Delhi-London flight 6E003 to Paris; both were cancelled on Wednesday. Air India’s four London flights were diverted on Tuesday and cancelled the following day. NATS, which operates the UK system, attributed the disruption to a problem in its flight processing system and said the original fault was resolved on Tuesday afternoon. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander met Rolfe on Wednesday and gave him a week to complete a full investigation.
