NATS cites "complex recovery" while disruptions persist

LONDON - UK air travel disruptions following a technical glitch at air traffic control provider NATS continued Wednesday with hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed. Nearly 250 flights had been cancelled by early morning hours, according to flight tracking website "Flightradar24", most at London Heathrow.

A technical glitch at NATS puts UK air traffic under pressure for a second day. Around 1,300 flights had to be cancelled Tuesday as the outage affected Heathrow as well as Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Birmingham airports.

Among the most affected airlines were Easyjet and British Airways.

NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe said the technical problem in the flight planning systems had been resolved, but warned that the disruption could continue as airlines worked to clear the backlog.

"Very complex recovery"

"This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover," NATS said. The cause of the failure remained unclear, although NATS said it was not the result of a cyber attack.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander summoned Rolfe for talks following the disruption while Ryanair executive Neal McMahon called for the NATS chief to resign. The disruption also affected flights to and from airports outside the UK.