Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
An air traffic control problem disrupted travel across Britain on Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and leaving passengers stranded for hours on runways and inside terminals, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
Britain’s National Air Traffic Services said by the evening that it had resolved the problem in its flight processing system. However, delays spread across 15 UK airports and beyond as airlines and airports worked to clear a large backlog of disrupted flights.
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Departures at London Heathrow resumed, but the airport suspended arrivals for the rest of the night because of the disruption and warned of further delays. Affected airports also included Stansted and City in London, along with Manchester, Birmingham, Gatwick and airports in Scotland. They asked passengers to check the status of their flights with their airlines.
Josie Donoghue said she spent three hours stuck on a plane at Gatwick before her Ryanair flight to Ireland was cancelled. “Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz,” she said, referring to the former prison in San Francisco Bay. “It’s just an absolute nightmare down there. It’s the only word I can use to describe it.”
Passengers on a British Airways flight due to leave for Baltimore got off the aircraft after four hours on the ground at Heathrow. During the delay, cabin crew served pasta and chicken curry while passengers watched films or walked through the aisles. But they later found more trouble at the baggage claim area and were told no one could help them and that they should file claims for their bags.
British Airways said it had to cancel or divert more than 100 flights. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected and that it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights. “The severity of the issue means there will be a significant knock-on impact,” a British Airways spokesperson said. “This incident was entirely out of our control and incredibly frustrating for our customers and colleagues, with aircraft and crews ending up out of place.”
Some passengers posted on social media about being stuck on planes for hours and said they were frustrated by a lack of communication from airlines. EasyJet said some of its flights were “unable to operate” and that the system failure caused “delays to flights across Europe”. Even after the technical issue was resolved, airlines and airports continued to deal with widespread disruption across Britain.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
