Heathrow Airport hit by more flight cancelations after air traffic failure

Heathrow Airport hit by more flight cancelations after air traffic failure
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At least 16 flights to and from London’s Heathrow Airport were canceled on Thursday following technical problems with Britain’s air traffic control system that caused widespread disruption across UK airports the previous day, Arab News reported.

National Air Traffic Services (NATS), responsible for air traffic control in UK airspace and the eastern North Atlantic, reported its systems were fully operational by Wednesday after switching to a backup system. Despite this, the outage—the second in two years—affected multiple airports including Gatwick near London and Edinburgh in Scotland, resulting in 122 cancellations as of 18:30 GMT Wednesday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Heathrow’s website showed cancellations for flights to Brussels and Toronto, as well as arrivals from New York and Berlin on Thursday. Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, did not immediately comment on the cancellations.

Ryanair’s Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon called for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign, criticizing the organization for failing to learn from a similar disruption in August 2023 caused by a flight plan processing malfunction.

NATS apologized for the disruption but has not responded to McMahon’s call for resignation. Heathrow also faced a power sub-station fire in March that stranded thousands of passengers.