Thousands of UK travellers faced a second day of flight cancellations on Wednesday after a technical fault crippled Britain’s air traffic control system.

Aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24 reported 177 flights scheduled for Wednesday were cancelled, following 1 300 scrapped flights to and from UK airports on Tuesday.

Nearly all the latest affected flights were at Heathrow in London, Britain’s busiest airport, FlightRadar24 wrote on X.

The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said it was still working to fix disruption following a system issue on Tuesday.

Complex recovery creates network difficulties

“This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover,” NATS said in an X post late Tuesday.

UK news outlets reported that British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander will meet NATS boss Martin Rolfe on Wednesday.

Rolfe told Sky News he accepted full responsibility but declined to say if he was considering stepping down from his job.

Alexander said earlier on X she was seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job.

But Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon repeated his calls for Rolfe to be fired, accusing him of having again failed UK travellers.

“Enough is enough, it’s time for the UK government to intervene and put somebody in charge who can do the job,” McMahon said.

Heathrow resumes departures but warns of delays

Heathrow said late Tuesday that departures had resumed after the technical issue forced the airport to suspend arrivals earlier in the day.

But it warned that disruption is expected to continue, asking passengers in an X post to check with their airline before travelling to the airport.

British Airways also warned of a significant knock-on impact from the cancellations, which had affected tens of thousands of its customers.

NATS said earlier it had resolved the glitch that caused the disruption and was working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights.

The air traffic chaos follows a technical glitch in July last year that saw scores of flights to and from the UK cancelled, prompting anger from airline chiefs.

Britain suffered its worst air systems failure in years in 2023, with more than 700 000 passengers affected after hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled.

Passengers describe nightmare scenes

Healthcare worker Josie Donoghue said it was an absolute nightmare at Gatwick after leaving the airport, having had to leave her flight to Ireland after three hours stuck on the runway.

“Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz,” she told Britain’s domestic Press Association news agency.

Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports were also affected, while Dublin Airport in Ireland said it had cancelled dozens of flights.

Irish no-frills carrier Ryanair said more than 65 000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 50 flights.

Arsenal, due to play Napoli in the Champions League on Wednesday in the southern Italian city, were forced to cancel a news conference ahead of the match after the team’s flight was delayed.

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