Continued travel turmoil has led to the cancellation of numerous flights to and from Glasgow Airport, extending the travel chaos into a second day. The disruption was triggered by a technical fault in the UK’s air traffic control (ATC) system on Monday, August 28, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and flights either delayed or scrapped.
As of 10 am on Tuesday, ten departing flights and six arriving flights had already been axed at Glasgow Airport. Travelers are advised to consult their respective airlines for the most up-to-date flight information.
The issue emerged on Monday due to a technical glitch that necessitated manual input of flight plans by controllers, resulting in more than 25% of departures and arrivals being canceled.
The disruption is anticipated to persist until Friday, as several aircraft and crews are displaced from their intended positions.
A notice posted on the Glasgow Airport website conveyed, “National Air Traffic Services (NATS) are continuing to ensure a return to normal operations across the UK following yesterday’s technical issue. A small number of today’s services continue to be affected and we would remind passengers to check with their individual airlines for the latest flight updates.”
According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, 790 departures and 785 arrivals were canceled at various UK airports on Monday.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper regarded this incident as the most severe of its kind in “nearly a decade” and announced the initiation of an “independent review.”
Harper informed GB News, “This was a technical fault. We do not think this was a cybersecurity incident. And what will happen now with an incident of this magnitude is there will be an independent review. The Civil Aviation Authority will be putting together a report in the coming days, which obviously I will take a look at to see whether there are lessons to learn for the future, to see whether we can reduce the impact of this again. It’s nearly a decade since there was a significant issue like this. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, because of all the disruption that’s been caused to passengers across the country.”