Baggage reclaim has descended into chaos at some of Britain's biggest airports with passengers unable to retrieve their suitcases after the air traffic control meltdown.Angry travellers separated from their luggage described packed baggage halls as 'apocalyptic' and 'carnage' amid fears violence and rioting would break out.Rows of abandoned bags lined the floor of Heathrow Terminal Five's baggage hall, with passengers' videos showing chaotic scenes as they tried to find their suitcases.It comes as dozens more flights in and out of Britain were cancelled today as chaos caused by major technical issues with air traffic control systems entered a third day.A total of 51 services at UK airports have been axed today. London Heathrow was worst affected with 28 flights cancelled, including 21 arrivals and seven departures.Some 11 further flights were cancelled at Gatwick and five at Glasgow along with a handful of other services across Aberdeen , London City, Luton and Manchester.Those attempting to get their bags after cancelled flights at Gatwick said thousands of people spent four hours trying to find them coming out on only two conveyor belts.Others at Heathrow were kicked off planes after waiting eight hours, only to find 'mayhem' in the baggage hall and 'overwhelmed' staff urging passengers to leave.Among those caught up in the astonishing scenes was Dr Mark Shanahan, a political historian from Oxfordshire, who arrived at Heathrow from Portugal late last night.He said: 'Landed on British Airways from Faro before midnight. Thirty five minutes to get on stand. Then no jetty operator and gate doors locked. Carnage in baggage hall - no bags and told to leave. Home, finally at 3am without cases. Sour end to holiday.'He claimed Heathrow had no staff in the T5 baggage hall, telling the airport: 'Given the situation and the sheer number of flights arriving late last night, you should have anticipated the volume of passengers and crewed up your operation accordingly.'My view from Tuesday's Gatwick Airport aftermath of cancelled flights due to NATS Air Traffic Control problems.Thousands attempt baggage reclaim on just two (not 3) conveyor belts, no signage to say what flights baggage was coming out and where. 4+ hours of this. pic.twitter.com/TWgKhSIKc8— NM (@englishbobsnr) September 9, 2026 I was stuck on British Airways plane on the tarmac at London Heathrow for 8 hours! Relieved to get off to see mayhem in the baggage hall . Staff overwhelmed and arrivals luggage everywhere. Staff told us go home all cancelled flights luggage was not going to be presented pic.twitter.com/VL3og4je7i— Nick Marr | Real Estate Pioneer (@NickCMarr) September 9, 2026 Mithu Sengupta, a British Airways passenger who arrived at Heathrow during the chaos, tweeted the airline to say: 'Where are our bags? Bags not unloaded after Heathrow chaos yesterday. Reported at airport, 24-plus hours later: no comms.'Your baggage tracing not updating and phone hanging up on customers. I'm Silver member - unacceptable service. Please respond urgently on eta for delivery.'She added: 'One would've thought by third NATS incident they would have some kind of emergency and contingency plan in place.'This was not the first time but any lessons learnt? The airport was in meltdown and little duty of care or service shown. British Airways, we expect better.'Fellow passenger Joe Misseldine, also from London, tweeted: 'After four hours waiting on phone, customer service told me to go back to the airport to get my bags. Flight cancellations at UK airports today National Air Traffic Services (NATS) serves 15 UK airports. Here are the cancellations at each of them today:HeathrowDepartures - 7Arrivals - 21GatwickDepartures - 5Arrivals - 6GlasgowDepartures - 3Arrivals - 2London CityArrivals - 2ManchesterDepartures - 2LutonDepartures - 1Arrivals - 1AberdeenDepartures - 1No cancellations today at Belfast City, Belfast International, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Farnborough, Southampton and Stansted. 'Went back to airport and they said no one is getting their bags today. I don't think they have processed any of the bags from the cancelled flights yesterday afternoon yet.'Matt Ernster, 28, who was returning to Boston via Heathrow from his honeymoon in Paris on Tuesday, said: 'We ended up sitting on our plane for just over five hours.'When he was finally allowed to disembark from the plane, 'it turned into a gigantic, chaotic scene,' Mr Ernster said. The baggage collection 'felt like an apocalyptic situation', and there were no hotels available in a two-hour radius.'It was the worst travel experience I've ever had,' he added.Gatwick passenger Phil White said scenes in the baggage reclaim hall were 'carnage', telling BBC News: 'All the bags from every cancelled flight were sent to one reclaim carousel. So there were a thousand or so people trying to get close enough to get their cases.'The baggage hall was the worst and they're very lucky that there wasn't any sort of incident as tempers frayed and the concourse was getting hotter.'Sky News journalist Kate Sullivan, who spent nine hours on board a plane at Heathrow before it was cancelled, described scenes of 'bedlam' at baggage claim.She told the broadcaster: 'There were cases strewn everywhere and no information available with the screens switched off. We couldn't find any BA staff. A Heathrow staff member told us he couldn't help because he didn't work for BA.'But the queue was 'over three hours long' and passengers were told in announcements to 'leave without our bags and go to the website to rebook and to claim our luggage'.One traveller at Heathrow posted a video on X of chaotic scenes, writing: 'I was stuck on British Airways plane on the tarmac at London Heathrow for eight hours. Relieved to get off to see mayhem in the baggage hall.'Staff overwhelmed and arrivals luggage everywhere. Staff told us go home. all cancelled flights luggage was not going to be presented.'Another passenger at Gatwick also tweeted a video of chaos, writing: 'Thousands attempt baggage reclaim on just two - not three - conveyor belts, no signage to say what flights baggage was coming out and where. Four-plus hours of this.' Passengers stand for hours with their luggage as they queue to check-in at Gatwick yesterday National Air Traffic Services (NATS) boss Martin Rolfe has faced calls to resign this weekSoftware engineer Daniel Garrick, 32, spent seven hours on a plane due to travel from Heathrow to Austin in Texas, before being 'released from the plane only to find Heathrow in absolute chaos'.He told The Guardian: 'My baggage was lost, and British Airways employees were nowhere to be found. People were sleeping on every spare inch of flooring, in arrivals and at security.'Mr Garrick described baggage reclaim as 'pandemonium', adding: 'All the screens just said it was closed. You couldn't tell where your baggage was supposed to be.The disruption that has caused chaos for 330,000 passengers since Tuesday started to ease this morning, with schedules set to return to normal later today.System issues have caused more than 2,000 flights to be cancelled so far and led to calls for National Air Traffic Services (NATS) chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign. Your rights when a flight is delayed What flights are covered by UK consumer law?Flights operated by an airline departing from a UK airport, flights operated by a UK or EU airline arriving at a UK airport, or flights operated by a UK airline arriving at an EU airport.– How long must a flight be delayed before I am entitled to assistance?It depends on the distance of the flight.For flights under 1,500km (932 miles) such as from Glasgow to Amsterdam: at least two hours.For flights between 1,500km (932 miles) and 3,500km (2,175 miles) such as from Manchester to Marrakesh: at least three hours.For flights over 3,500km (2,175 miles) such as from Heathrow to New York: at least four hours.– What should this assistance include?A reasonable amount of food and drink (often via vouchers), a means for you to communicate (often by refunding the cost of phone calls) and accommodation and transfers if an overnight stay is required.– What happens in reality?Airlines often fail to provide this assistance during major disruption because of being overwhelmed by requests and a shortage of available rooms in local hotels.In this scenario, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says passengers can organise their own assistance and claim the costs back from the airline by submitting receipts.– Does that mean I should book a luxury hotel suite and order champagne?Airlines are unlikely to reimburse you for that. The CAA advises passengers not to 'spend more than is reasonable'.– How long must assistance be provided?Until your flight takes off or you accept a refund after deciding not to travel.– What about getting to my destination?If a flight is cancelled, airlines are required to get you to your destination if you still want to travel.Most will book you onto another of their flights, but you may be entitled to travel with another airline or by an alternative mode of transport if it will get you to your destination significantly sooner.Passengers doing this are often required to purchase their own tickets and submit a claim to their original airline for reimbursement.– What if I no longer want to travel?You are entitled to a refund if you have been delayed by more than five hours.– Am I entitled to compensation for a delayed flight?Airlines may be liable for compensation if the reason for a delay is deemed within their control, such as a fault with the aircraft or pilot sickness.Causes of disruption classed as outside their control include severe weather, air traffic control control restrictions and security alerts.In the case of Tuesday's disruptions, passengers are unlikely to be owed compensation as the technical issue is considered an 'extraordinary circumstance' and out of the airline's control.– What if my flight is cancelled?You are entitled to a refund or a replacement flight, and the same assistance as if your flight was delayed.– Can I claim compensation if my flight is cancelled?You can if the reason is deemed within the airline's control, you received no more than 14 days' notice and depending on the timings of a new flight offered.Again, Tuesday's events are unlikely to fall within this category. Among those insisting that Mr Rolfe should now step down has been Michael O'Leary, the outspoken boss of budget airline Ryanair, who called his position 'untenable'.Mr O'Leary is likely to issue further criticism of Mr Rolfe when he hosts Ryanair's annual general meeting at its headquarters close to Dublin Airport this morning.Airlines continue to face knock-on impacts as staff scramble to reposition crews and aircraft following 2,145 flights axed on Tuesday and yesterday, according to Cirium.A total of 399 flights were cancelled or did not fly yesterday. The worst affected airport was Heathrow, which saw 79 out of a total of 666 departures affected.Despite having presided over three major failures in recent years, Mr Rolfe earned £1.42million in pay and bonuses last year and £1.49million the year before.But he was summoned for talks with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander yesterday amid growing calls from within the industry for him to be sacked.Mr Rolfe has been given a week to report back on the cause behind the technical failure which is expected to have cost the industry tens of millions of pounds.The minister later told MPs she did not believe the glitch was 'unavoidable' and said she had asked the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to conduct an independent review.'A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions and delays,' she told the Commons.'I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption,' the minister added, vowing to leave 'no stone unturned' in getting to the bottom of the failure.'This morning I have spoken to NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe, who informed me this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site.'So, while my understanding from NATS is that we can rule out a cyber-attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable.'But I am clear that passengers should not have to face this disruption. I have therefore asked the CAA to conduct an independent review.'Despite this Andy Burnham's spokesman said the Prime Minister still had confidence in the air traffic control provider's head.Mr Burnham's spokesman said Ms Alexander had met with Mr Rolfe to 'raise significant concerns at the scale of disruption on behalf of both passengers and industry'.'She's asked him to carry out a full investigation into what happened to make sure that lessons are learned,' he added. 'She set a deadline for them to report back in a week's time.'Asked whether the government still had confidence in Mr Rolfe, he said: 'We have confidence in him and he's been tasked with the investigation.'But airline bosses were left furious with Wizz Air also publicly demanding for Mr Rolfe to be sacked.Airlines UK, the association of UK airlines, said more than 155,000 passengers had flights cancelled while more than 180,000 experienced delays, taking the total number affected beyond 330,000.In a strongly worded letter, the association's chief executive Tim Alderslade wrote to the Transport Secretary yesterday to raise 'serious concern' and call for action.'Airlines should not be left as the insurer of last resort for failures they did not cause and cannot control,' he said.The letter, which was highly critical of NATS which serves 15 UK airports, said the flight-processing system had failed and the 'full scale' of the disruption was 'still becoming clear'.'This kind of failure simply cannot happen again,' it said.The CAA said last night that passengers, many of whom were forced to book hotels and alternative last-minute flights, are unlikely to be entitled to any compensation over the disruption.It said under passenger rights rules, the NATS issue is 'likely to be considered the result of extraordinary circumstances'.'This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident,' it said in a statement.Mr Rolfe yesterday apologised for the widespread chaos for which he said he took 'full responsibility'.'We will be doing a very thorough and full investigation,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'We have at this point ruled out a cyber-attack.''Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems. We never want them to. We always hope they won't, but we absolutely plan for them to and make sure we handle them properly.' Passengers wait to drop their bags at London Heathrow Airport's Terminal Two yesterdayDefending the system, Mr Rolfe added the UK has 'one of the best reputations' globally for its air traffic control service, from both a safety and resilience perspective. He said since NATS was partially privatised 25 years ago more than £1billion had been invested in the technology 'consistently improving' the service and its safety.'But all of those things don't detract from the fact that when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologise.'NATS said the failure occurred in its flight processing system at its Swanwick headquarters near Southampton, where air traffic controllers guide flights across all UK airspace.But it said it was not the same issue which triggered the outages in 2023 and 2025 which also caused mass disruption.Mr Rolfe said that his teams were now focused on dealing with the 'huge tail of disruption' caused by the outage, before they could examine the cause behind it.'What I will say is, I don't believe we've ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we've never seen in 50 years of operation.'British Airways said it has 'long made the case for improved resilience in aviation' and issues raised by the system failure need 'to be addressed as a matter of urgency'.The airline was the worst affected airline by disruption yesterday, as it saw 88 of its 507 flights scheduled to depart affected. Bosses said they were 'incredibly sorry' to customers and that the issue had been 'entirely out of our control'.A BA spokeswoman added: 'As a result of this week's air traffic control outage, our teams have been working around the clock to support our customers and help get their journey's back on track. 'We are sorry that some customers are still without their baggage and are working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.'A Heathrow spokesman said today: 'Following Tuesday's technical issue affecting NATS air traffic control, Heathrow is operating as normal today and our airport systems are functioning as expected. 'We continue to work closely with airlines to support their recovery, and while the vast majority of flights are operating as scheduled, there may still be some changes to airline timetables. 'We know the knock-on effects of Tuesday's disruption have been frustrating, and we thank those affected for their patience. Passengers should check with their airline for the latest flight information before travelling to Heathrow.'READ MORE: The head of air traffic – who earns almost 10x the PM and loves WFH