177 flights canceled due to aviation system failure in England

Aircraft tracking site FlightRadar24 reported that a further 177 flights planned for Wednesday were cancelled, following the cancellation of 1,300 round-trip flights to UK airports the day before.

According to FlightRadar24's post on the X platform, almost all of the last flights affected took place from Heathrow in London, Britain's busiest airport.

National Air Traffic Services (NATS) stated that efforts are continuing to resolve the disruptions caused by problems in the system.

“This has been a very complex recovery process and has caused challenges for the entire aviation network, which will take time to recover from,” NATS said in a post late Tuesday. he said.

British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander will reportedly meet NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe on Wednesday. In his statement, Rolfe said he accepted full responsibility but declined to comment on whether he was considering leaving his job.

Transport Minister Alexander previously stated in his post on the X platform that he was looking for assurances that lessons would be learned from these problems and that the systems that support aviation would fulfill their duties.

But Ryanair Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon reiterated his call for Rolfe to be sacked, accusing him of disappointing British passengers once again.

"Enough is enough, it's time for the British government to intervene and appoint someone who can do the job." said McMahon.

Heathrow said late Tuesday that one-way outbound flights had resumed after the airport suspended inbound flights due to a technical fault.

However, the organization warned that the outages were expected to continue and asked passengers to contact their airlines before going to the airport.

British Airways also warned that cancellations would affect tens of thousands of its customers and have a significant knock-on effect.

NATS has previously stated that it has resolved the issue that caused the disruption and is working as best as possible to resolve the backlog of flights. “We know this is extremely frustrating and we apologize unreservedly,” the organization wrote in a statement on the X platform.

The chaos in air traffic emerged after a technical fault caused the cancellation of scores of flights to and from the UK in July last year, prompting outrage from airline executives across the country.

In 2023, the UK experienced its worst weather system failure in years; More than 700 thousand passengers were affected as a result of hundreds of flights being delayed or canceled.