British airports have been in chaos since Tuesday because of a technical fault at air traffic control provider NATS, with the disruption reaching Cyprus directly as roughly 5,000 passengers on flights to and from the island are affected.
According to Hermes Airports’ online flight information board, one flight from Heathrow to Larnaca and one from Larnaca to Heathrow had been cancelled as of Wednesday, September 9. Flights to and from Paphos Airport did not appear to be affected at this stage.
Hermes Airports sources told Philenews the situation remained fully in progress, with no clear picture yet of how many delays and cancellations there would be, or how things would develop over the coming hours.
On Tuesday, eight flights to and from Cyprus were affected in total: three arrivals from London to Larnaca and three departures from Larnaca to London were cancelled, along with three arrivals from London and one from Manchester at Paphos Airport, and the corresponding departures from Paphos to those destinations. Hermes said some of Tuesday’s cancelled flights were expected to be rescheduled for Wednesday.
Hundreds of flights cancelled this morning
According to British media, Wednesday’s cancellations were concentrated mainly at Heathrow, where 246 flights had been cancelled by 6am, while Gatwick recorded 33 cancellations.
A further 16 flights were cancelled at Heathrow between 7am and 8am, while two flights bound for Heathrow and Paris were cancelled at Manchester Airport after 7am. In Glasgow, flights to Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick were cancelled in the same window.
On Tuesday, the airports affected by cancellations and delays included Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, Edinburgh and Dublin.
Heathrow’s statement
Heathrow Airport urged travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport. “Flights are operating normally today, but some disruption may continue as airlines rearrange aircraft and crews,” it said, referring to Tuesday’s NATS technical fault.
The airport asked passengers to check with their airline before travelling and only to go if their flight had been confirmed, apologising to those affected and saying it had deployed extra staff across all its terminals to support passengers while working with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations as soon as possible.
What’s behind the technical fault
The technical fault occurred at air traffic control provider NATS. “The problem was in the flight data processing system,” NATS said in a statement, adding that its engineers were on site working urgently to restore normal operations as soon as possible. It said flights continued to depart and that airspace remained open, but that restoring normal operations would take some time.
