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LONDON: UK air travelers faced more misery Wednesday with nearly 400 flights scrapped across the country, as Britain\u2019s air traffic control service scrambled to recover from a technical glitch which it ruled out as a cyberattack.<\/p>\n
After 1,746 flights were canceled Tuesday following the outage, another 399 were axed Wednesday \u2014 the majority to and from London Heathrow, one of Europe\u2019s busiest airports \u2014 according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.<\/p>\n
More than 330,000 passengers were affected over the two days of disruption, with 155,000 seeing their flights canceled while around 180,000 experienced delays, industry body Airlines UK said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ended up sitting on our plane for just over five hours,\u201d Matt Ernster, 28, who was returning to Boston via Heathrow from his honeymoon in Paris on Tuesday, told AFP.<\/p>\n
When they were finally allowed to disembark from the plane, \u201cit turned into a gigantic, chaotic scene\u201d, Ernster said. The baggage collection \u201cfelt like an apocalyptic situation\u201d, and there were no hotels available in a two-hour radius.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the worst travel experience I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n
– \u2018Thorough\u2019 probe –<\/p>\n
The head of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), Martin Rolfe, said \u201cwe have at this point ruled out cyber\u201d activity as a cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t believe it was a cyberattack,\u201d he told BBC radio.<\/p>\n
Rolfe said NATS will be doing a \u201cvery, very thorough\u201d investigation into what exactly caused the incident.<\/p>\n
National carrier British Airways said it had to cancel nearly 550 flights \u2014 200 of them Wednesday \u2014 due to the incident, which it said affected 85,000 of its customers.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s travel chaos followed a technical glitch in July last year that saw scores of flights to and from the UK canceled, prompting anger from airline chiefs.<\/p>\n
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 canceled.<\/p>\n
After holding talks with Rolfe Wednesday morning, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs she did not believe the issue was \u201cunavoidable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Alexander said she had ordered an independent review to establish the cause and \u201censure that our air traffic control systems can get passengers to where they need to be\u201d.<\/p>\n
It will report within six months.<\/p>\n
Rolfe told Sky News he accepted \u201cfull responsibility\u201d but declined to say if he was considering quitting his job.<\/p>\n
Neal McMahon, chief operations officer at Irish no-frills airline Ryanair, called Tuesday for Rolfe to be fired, accusing him of having \u201cfailed UK travelers\u201d.<\/p>\n
– \u2018Absolute nightmare\u2019 –<\/p>\n
Caught up by the glitch, health care worker Josie Donoghue endured \u201can absolute nightmare\u201d at London\u2019s Gatwick airport, having had to disembark her flight to Ireland after three hours stuck on the runway.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz,\u201d she told Britain\u2019s domestic Press Association news agency.<\/p>\n
Susie Senahe, 55, who was traveling back to Accra in Ghana after visiting her daughter in the UK, had been rebooked onto a Friday flight.<\/p>\n
She told AFP on Wednesday she was planning to sleep at the Heathrow terminal until then.<\/p>\n
Another woman traveling to the United States, who did not want to be named, said she slept in the airport Tuesday night because nearby hotels were \u201cfully booked\u201d.<\/p>\n
Impacted passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation because the outage was likely to be considered due to \u201cextraordinary circumstances\u201d under passenger rights rules, the aviation regulator has said.<\/p>\n
Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports were also affected, primarily on Tuesday, while Dublin airport said it had canceled dozens of flights.<\/p>\n
Ryanair has said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted with 50 of its flights canceled, the majority on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n