Media: 1,900 flights canceled at British airports due to technical failure

More than 1,900 arriving and departing flights have been canceled at airports in Great Britain due to a large-scale technical failure in air traffic control.

This was reported by The Times newspaper, citing Cirium, a company that tracks air traffic.

Experts point out that the flight cancellations continue to disrupt the operations of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, London City and other airports.

Martin Rolfe, head of National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the holding company responsible for air traffic control in the United Kingdom, ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack. According to him, a thorough investigation into what happened will be carried out.

The regulator — the UK Civil Aviation Authority — has demanded that NATS provide a full report on the incident before considering whether it is necessary to "take further steps to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the air traffic control system" in the United Kingdom.

According to a statement by Ryanair, Europe's largest budget airline, delays or cancellations of more than 200 flights affected up to 150,000 passengers. British Airways was forced to cancel or redirect more than 100 flights and predicts that the disruptions will continue on Wednesday. According to EasyJet, some of its flights "cannot be operated" because of air traffic control problems. This has caused flight delays across Europe.

According to NATS, the problem "with the flight processing system" was detected at around 1:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday and was "completely resolved" by 7:00 p.m. It was believed that the technical problem affected only departing flights, but since aircraft could not leave the overcrowded airports, arriving flights also had to be canceled.

Source: TASS