Significant disruptions and delays expected to continue at UK airports

Huge disruptions are expected to continue

London Heathrow, the UK"s busiest airport, is one of the airports to confirm they are expecting delays to continue, saying that their services will "remain significantly disrupted" today (Tuesday 29).

In a statement they urged passengers to contact their airline before travelling to the airport.

They said: "While the issue has been resolved, schedules remain significantly disrupted. If you are travelling on the 29th August, pleasure ensure you contact your airline before travelling to the airport."

London Gatwick have announced they are trying to run a normal schedule today, however passengers have been advised to check the status of their flight before travelling to the airport.

UK airlines Tui and BA warned of "significant delays" to passengers due to changes in schedules.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper said on Monday that "despite resolving the technical issue behind today's air traffic control issues, flights are still unfortunately affected."

Yesterday afternoon, NATS said that that "technical issue" had been identified and remedied however travellers continue to face disruptions, with many news outlets, including Sky News, saying that delays and disruptions could go on for days, even weeks.

NATS said: "We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system's performance as we return to normal operations.

"The flight planning issue affected the system's ability to automatically process flight plans, meaning that flight plans had to be processed manually which cannot be done at the same volume, hence the requirement for traffic flow restrictions.

"Our priority is always to ensure that every flight in the UK remains safe and we are sincerely sorry for the disruption this is causing. Please contact your airline for information on how this may affect your flight."

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