UK air traffic chaos ’caused by French airline’s wrong travel plan’

Officers are reportedly investigating whether a single airline may have led to an IT hiccup that spiralled into a wave of flight cancellations and delays.

Tens of thousands of flights are scheduled each August bank holiday weekend, amounting to millions of airline departure seats.

But Nats, an agency that operates Britain’s air traffic control services, said it experienced ‘technical issues’ yesterday, grounding some 1,000 flights.

The glitch meant flight plans had to be punched in manually by air traffic controllers.

About one in 10 flights departing or arriving at UK airports on the bank holiday were affected, impacting people returning from summer vacations or extended weekend trips.

Have you been caught up in the air traffic chaos? Get in touch at webnews@metro.co.uk

While Nats says it has fixed the seven-hour IT fault and British airspace was never closed, fears remain that flights may continue to be affected in the coming days.

Questions remain too over what exactly led to the travel mayhem, with sources alleging to The Times that it may have been ‘the result of an incorrectly filed plan by a French airline’.

Nats, the newspaper said, declined to comment on the matter and the airline said to be involved has not been identified.

At 3:15pm yesterday, Nats said engineers ‘identified and remedied the technical issue’ as they work to bring the network back to ‘normal operations’.

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

Nats chief Julie Kennedy added at the time: ‘First of all, I’d like to apologise for the impact on people’s travel plans today.

‘Our teams worked hard to resolve the problem, and I’m pleased to say it was fixed earlier this afternoon.

‘However, it will take some time for flights to return to normal. And we will continue to work with the airlines and the airports to recover the situation.

‘Our absolute priority is safety and we will be investigating very thoroughly what happened today.’

A cyberattack has been ruled out by government and aviation officials.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said more than 500 flights were cancelled by Monday afternoon on a day when 3,054 were scheduled to arrive in UK airports.

A further 3,049 flights were due to depart yesterday, meaning more than a million people were meant to have left or arrived in the UK.

But despite Nats resolving the technical issue, ‘flights are still unfortunately affected’, transport secretary Mark Harper posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, yesterday.

He encouraged Brits to read up on their passenger rights on the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s website.

The regulator stresses that airlines have a ‘duty of care’ for affected passengers, which includes providing a refund or alternative travel arrangements.

Holidaymakers and other passengers are being told by airlines today to check flight details well in advance before heading out to the airport.

Even when at the airport, hours of grinding delays will likely be encountered this morning before boarding can even start.

‘Again, I would like to apologise for the impact on the travelling public,’ added Kennedy, ‘and to tell you that our teams will continue to work to get you on your way as soon as we can.’

The government has a 49% stake in Nats, meaning it is public-private ownership.

Nats has been contacted for comment.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.