Hundreds of flights into Britain canceled after ‘technical issue’ with UK ATC

Airlines were forced to cancel hundreds of flights and delay hundreds more on Monday after Britain’s air traffic control service experienced a “technical issue” that caused widespread disruption on one of the country’s busiest travel days of the year. More than 200 flights departing from Britain were canceled, according to Cirium, the aviation analytics company, along with 271 that were scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday. Many other flights would be delayed by more than eight hours, “which will inevitably result in a cancellation,” Cirium added. NATS, Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, said a technical problem had affected its ability to automatically process flight plans, which meant that the information had to be entered manually, slowing down the process. While British airspace was not closed at any time, NATS restricted the number of flights departing from and landing at airports in order to maintain safety while its engineers tried to fix the problem. At about 3 p.m. local time, NATS said it had resolved the issue, but noted that air traffic remained disrupted. Britain’s government has a 49% stake in NATS, which is a public-private partnership. The delays hit during a particularly heavy travel period, as people returned from summer vacations or extended weekend trips on Monday’s “bank holiday,” or national day off, in Britain. Thousands of holidaymakers spent hours stuck in departure lounges or on runway tarmac, facing long delays and uncertain departure times. <br/>