Hundreds of thousands of passengers across the UK are suffering travel chaos after an air traffic control failure grounded planes at the start of the school summer holidays.
London’s airspace was closed for more than an hour because of “technical issues” said to be caused by a “radar failure” that last 20 minutes, according to a Department for Transport (DfT) source.
Air traffic control provider Nats said its engineers have “restored the system that was affected” and it is “in the process of resuming normal operations”. It said the technical issue was at its control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire.
However, passengers up and down the country are now facing delays of up to three hours, with fears that the major disruption could now last for days.
Aviation data company Cirium said there were 3,080 scheduled departures from UK airports on Wednesday – equating to more than 577,000 seats.
Ryanair is now calling for Nats’s chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign, claiming “no lessons have been learnt” since the August 2023 outage when more than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption after Nats suffered a technical glitch.
The full cost of that meltdown to airlines, airports passengers and others was around £100 million.
The Liberal Democrats demanded a Government investigation into Wednesday’s air traffic control glitch “to ensure the system is fit for purpose, including ruling out hostile action as a cause”.
Sir Ed Davey added: “The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “I am aware of a technical issue which impacted Nats’ operations causing travel disruption this afternoon.
“I have been informed systems have now been restored but continued disruption is expected, and passengers should check with individual airports for advice.”
A family on the “trip of a lifetime” have been caught up in the travel chaos at Heathrow Terminal 5.
Durand Meachem, 49, from North Carolina, is travelling with his partner and their two daughters on a tour of New York, London, Dubai and Thailand to celebrate his upcoming 50th birthday.
“We are supposed to take off at 10.30pm, but being that no flights have come in, all the flights are delayed,” he told The Telegraph.
Mr Meachem said he has been quizzing airport staff to find out details. “I was asking him a variety of questions about the situation, just because everything is time sensitive, for everyone. Those who are coming in, and those who are leaving.”
Consumer group Which? has advised passengers that the radar failure would likely be classified as an “extraordinary circumstance” outside of the airline’s control, making compensation claims unlikely to succeed.
Naomi Leach, deputy editor at Which? Travel, said: “If your flight is cancelled or delayed, you’re unlikely to be owed compensation by the airline as the technical issue is considered an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ and out of the airline’s control.
“However, you do have a right to food or a hotel stay depending on the length of the delay but be sure you keep the receipts as you will need to claim this back from the airline.”
On its website, the Citizens Advice Bureau also said that passengers were unlikely to get compensation if a delay was outside an airline’s control, such as through bad weather or security risks.
In the departure lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5, confused travellers are milling around, waiting for British Airways to update them on the fate of their flights.
“We don’t know if we’ve been affected yet,” said John Wharton, 56, who, along with Christina Franca, 50, is returning from holiday in Madeira and waiting for a connecting flight home to Jersey.
“We’ve just travelled back from Madeira. We flew in, got here and just connected to the internet and we’ve seen all the potential problems.”
Despite the prospect of delays, the pair remain optimistic. An earlier Heathrow to Jersey flight due to depart at 4.20pm is now set for 7.20pm, but all later services, including theirs, are still showing as on time.
“We don’t know until we start putting our bags in, but we can’t put our bags in until 5.40pm, so we are just waiting.”
Mr Wharton remains sanguine. “It’s one of those things, you can’t do anything about it.”
“We’ll just go to the bar and have another drink, so it’s fine. These things happen. It’s out of our control.”
Children on board a grounded plane have been offered entertainment in the form of taking a look around the cockpit.
Dionne Ukleja, who is travelling with her teenage daughter from Heathrow to Houston following a study abroad programme in Oxford, said: “At one point the pilot even opened up the flight deck and invited the kids to have a look”.
She said: “We were supposed to take off at 2.50pm. We were third in the queue when the radar went down.
“They had us sitting on the tarmac for a while before asking us to move across the airport to park next to the Concorde. After about 20 minutes there, we were sent back to the stands.”
A total of 80 flights to and from the UK have been cancelled so far as a direct result of the Nats radar failure.
That number is likely to rise, aviation data company Cirium warned, as the full impact of the incident makes itself felt across Britain and the Continent.
It does not count the number of delayed flights, which is likely to be in the hundreds if not thousands.
A Cirium spokesman said: “Today, 30 July 2025, has seen a total of 45 departures cancelled so far, across all UK airports.
“There has also been a total of 35 arrivals cancelled so far, across all UK airports.
“London Heathrow has seen the highest number of cancellations so far with a total of 16 departures and seven arrivals so far.
Around 16 flights en-route to London Heathrow had to be diverted to other airports, Cirium added.
Passengers on a Heathrow flight, intended for Orly in southern Paris, are now entering their third hour stuck on the tarmac.
Aurelia, 51, who was travelling from Heathrow to visit family in France, said her Vueling flight was scheduled to take off at 3.05pm, and said passengers “are all a little fed up”.
She’s travelling with her two adult kids but said a number of families with young children are “roaming around” the cabin, and air hostesses have been “offering water to people with kids”.
Aurelia added that “even the crew seems to have received limited information” regarding when the plane will get moving.
Passengers should be given “food and drink” if they are stranded as a result of the Nats radar system failure, the Civil Aviation Authority has said.
In addition, those stranded overnight should be given hotel accommodation as well.
Meanwhile, Nats – the air traffic control organisation responsible for the radar system which failed this afternoon – will have to deliver a formal incident report to the authority.
A spokesperson for the CAA said: “We understand the challenges many consumers face following the technical issue that impacted NATS’ systems today. Passengers who have been or continue to be impacted can find information about what they are entitled to on our website and social media channels.
“In the event of delays or cancellations, passengers will be expected to be provided with food and drink as well as accommodation if delayed overnight.
“Following today’s failure, as part of the well-established regulatory processes of NATS’ licenced activity, NATS will share an incident report with the CAA.”
A full investigation into Wednesday’s air traffic control glitch must be launched, the Liberal Democrats said.
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said: “It is utterly unacceptable that after a major disruption just two years ago, air traffic control has once again been hit by a technical fault.
“With thousands of families preparing to go on a well-earned break, this just isn’t good enough.
“The Government should launch an urgent investigation to ensure the system is fit for purpose, including ruling out hostile action as a cause.
“The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.”
A Londoner may be unable to attend a wedding after her flight was cancelled because of the airspace outage.
Monica Clare, 68, was due to fly with her cousin Geri Hawkins, 71, on Aer Lingus to a wedding in Limerick in the Republic of Ireland.
But the 2.40pm flight from Heathrow Airport was cancelled after the captain’s shift ended during a delay.
Ms Clare, from Brentford, west London, and Ms Hawkins, from Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire, have been left unsure of how they will get to a wedding they are due to attend in Limerick on Friday.
“We went back to the stand for more fuel and possibly a new route out but the backlog of flights is a bit crazy now,” Ms Clare told The Telegraph.
“We had a cup of water. The wedding is in Limerick on Friday but a hotel and hire car are awaiting us tonight.
“I was anxious for getting to Shannon while it’s still daylight as I am meant to be driving when I get to the other end.
“But at 5.30pm the captain told us their shift had finished so Aer Lingus HQ in Dublin cancelled the flight.
“We have been told to get updates back at the departure terminal as to when and how we can travel.
“We are completely fed up now.”
British Airways said it will be operating 32 flights per hour until 7.15pm at Heathrow Airport, by which time the airline expects to be back to the usual 45 per hour.
Disruption spanned an hour or more with some domestic and short European flights that weren’t due to reach cruising altitude able to depart but the majority disrupted, with no incoming services possible.
Six or seven aircraft that were in the air and due to land were diverted to Paris and Brussels and they’re trying to get those passengers home. Other flights were held at foreign airports and that backlog is now being worked through.
A British Airways source said: “We don’t know what caused this yet but it appears to have been a radar issue and Nats are responsible for the radar, so you have to say it the buck stops with them.”
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