Hundreds of flights have been cancelled or delayed in the UK today, with experts warning that the "knock-on" effects of yesterday's air traffic control outage will take a long time to clear.
A total of 291 flights have been cancelled at UK airports so far today, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Of those, 120 were departures and 171 were arrivals, accounting for around 5 per cent of the 5,869 flights scheduled.
It comes after more than 1,300 flights to and from at least 15 UK airports were cancelled yesterday after a major technical issue hit National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the UK's air traffic control provider. Tens of thousands of holidaymakers were left stranded for hours, with distressed passengers reporting being left waiting on runways.
Airports affected by the disruption included Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, London City, London Southend, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Liverpool John Lennon, Aberdeen, Belfast, EMA, Southampton, Leeds and Jersey.
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe apologised, telling the BBC that there would be a full investigation into what had gone wrong. Asked about the cause of the problem, Mr Rolfe said a "thorough" investigation would be carried out, but ruled out a cyber-attack.
