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UK flights grounded by air traffic control glitch
Stalled data stalls planes

By Tim Ferguson

Published: Friday 26 September 2008

Airports across the south of England saw hundreds of flights cancelled yesterday following a computer problem affecting the air traffic control system.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which oversees much of air traffic control in the UK, suffered a glitch that stopped data reaching workstations at its London area control centre at Swanwick in Hampshire.

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The problem occurred just before 17:00(BST) yesterday and was resolved by 19:00(BST) with operations at Heathrow, Gatwick and other airports being hit.

The problem only affected air traffic higher than 24,000ft over England and Wales, meaning the number of aircraft entering the affected airspace was restricted.

Inbound flights had to be cancelled at some airports Friday morning due to planes being located at the wrong airports.

Speaking to silicon.com on Friday, a British Airways spokesman said: "Because obviously we cancelled the number of flights outbound last night, if the aircraft doesn't go then it can't come back so we had to take out some inbound cancellations this morning as well."

He said only short haul flights operating to and from Heathrow were cancelled with a full long-haul service operating during the day.

"There are no more departures cancelled out of Heathrow for today," he added.

As a result of the problems, EasyJet had to cancel more than 60 flights to and from Bristol, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports.

In a statement, Ian Hall, director of operational performance at Nats, said: "We take every step to avoid any problems but are always aware, that in maintaining and updating highly complex systems, we can experience difficulties."

He added that safety was not compromised at any stage.