A massive air traffic control glitch that grounded around 1,750 flights in the U.K. on Tuesday canceled around 320 more connections on Wednesday, even as operations of the country’s public-private ATC services provider, known as NATS, appeared to stabilize.
Flights at most major British airports, including London Heathrow, Gatwick, and Manchester, were paused at times on Tuesday due to the outage. As of Wednesday, flights had resumed, but there were significant knock-on effects resulting in cancellations and delays, including at Heathrow, Gatwick, Bristol, and Belfast.
NATS apologized on Wednesday and said its system has recovered. It also said it will thoroughly investigate the outage.
Separately, the Civil Aviation Authority has launched its own investigation.
Martin Rolfe, director of NATS, met with U.K. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander on Wednesday, where she reportedly expressed “significant concerns” about the disruption. NATS is expected to produce its preliminary findings on the cause or causes of the glitch by next week, according to the BBC.
The outage left tens of thousands of people effectively stranded at airports across the U.K. and Europe more broadly, since British airlines were forced to cancel most flights into the country. The BBC identified and spoke with numerous travelers stranded in locales such as Spain, Cyprus, and Greece.
While its investigation has just begun, CAA said Wednesday that travelers with canceled or delayed flights are unlikely to be eligible for compensation under the U.K.’s consumer protection laws.
NATS provides air traffic services for 15 airports in the U.K. from centers in Swanwick and Prestwick. The government owns 49% of the company, with the remainder held by NATS staff, airport operator LHR Airports Limited, and a consortium representing carriers such as British Airways, EasyJet, Virgin Atlantic, and Lufthansa.
