Great Britain: Airports In Chaos, Hundreds Of Flights Delayed And Canceled

A computer glitch has caused chaos in Europe’s air traffic. Hundreds of canceled or delayed flights, especially those that depart from the UK, have a UK destination, or are forced to use UK airspace.

The UK National Air Traffic Service (NATS) explained that the delays (even for a few hours) and flight cancellations were due to a technical/IT issue. In particular, the system no longer automatically processed aircraft flight plans, which therefore had to be entered manually, thus causing obvious inconvenience and loss of time.

Around 5:00 pm, NATS explained that it had identified the issue, but delays and problems would continue for the next few hours. “This morning, we identified and fixed a technical issue affecting our flight planning system,” NATS said in a statement. “We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the affected flights as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will closely monitor system performance when we return to normal operations.” However, some passengers talk about hours spent waiting for boarding in airports or even being locked up in planes on the runway ready to take off. Authorities recommend contacting airlines for information on flight status.