Reason behind thousands of UK flight cancellations 'under investigation'
Hundreds more flights are cancelled across UK airports including Gatwick and Heathrow today and customers are demanding to know exactly what happened.
Listen to this article
Airports including Stansted, Manchester, Heathrow and Gatwick faced huge disruption on Tuesday 8th September as more than 1,300 flights were cancelled.
Leaving customers with no choice but to go home or sleep on the floor amongst the travel chaos, the National Air Traffic Control Service (Nats) has said this is something they've never seen in '50 years of operation'.
Talking on the Today programme, Nats chief Martin Rolfe made the statement: "I absolutely understand the frustration. We never do this lightly. We only ever do it when there is an issue that cannot be resolved quickly, and we have to take action to make sure that those who are flying are safe.
- Read more: Thousands remain stranded as flights grounded across Britain - after air traffic control boss says sorry but refuses to resign
- Read more: Your rights if your flight is cancelled: What you’re owed as air traffic control chaos grounds 200 UK flights
"Our attention will turn to exactly what's happened in this particular incident. I don't believe we've ever seen an incident happen more than once. So this will be something different, something that we've never seen in 50 years of operation."
As we head into Wednesday 9th September, yet more delays and cancellations are sweeping through UK and Europe airports due to the issue.
Why exactly have so many flights been cancelled?
Early afternoon on Tuesday 8th, Nats confirmed there was a "technical failure" in the flight processing system managed by air traffic control which led to thousands of stranded passengers.
At present, no update has been given about what the glitch was, but they have ruled out a cyber attack.
Nats chief Martin Rolfe said: "We don't believe it was a cyber attack. Obviously, my focus and that of the team has been on both getting our system operating back up normally, which it is now.
"But there's obviously a huge tail to the disruption, and we'll be working on that through the course of today."
As all flights across UK airports were grounded, it meant there was little space for inbound flights to land, leading to further disruption across Europe and more.
The issue was fixed after four hours but the on-going impact is still causing disruption across some major airports.
How long will flights in the UK be cancelled for?
Now the technical issue has been fixed, travellers should see a slow return to normal travel.
Currently, Stansted and Manchester airport have stated they are running a normal service. Heathrow and Gatwick still have cancelled flights as they recover from the backlog of yesterday's disruption. The advice is to check with airlines before you travel.
Chief executive Martin Rolfe has been summoned by the transport secretary to discuss the issues and the Nats response.