British Airways has cancelled a further 34 domestic and European flights to and from London Heathrow as the airline recovers from Monday’s air-traffic control shutdown.
The Independent has identified 18 domestic departures, including three in each direction linking Heathrow with Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and two to and from Glasgow.
To and from Continental Europe, single departures serving Berlin, Budapest, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Munich, Prague and Rome. A flight to Sofia has been delayed for 23 hours.
British Airways is telling passengers: “Like all airlines using UK airspace, our flights have been severely disrupted as a result of a major issue experienced by Nats Air Traffic Control on Monday 28 August. While Nats has now resolved the issue, it has created significant and unavoidable delays and cancellations.”
Passengers booked on short-haul flights on Wednesday can move their flights free of charge to a later date, subject to availability.
Sources told The Independent that a dodgy flight plan filed by a French airline may have sparked the major systems meltdown.
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe appeared to confirm that claim late on Tuesday, saying in a statement: “Initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data we received.”
He said the error caused both Nats’ primary and back-up systems to suspend automatic processing “to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information” could impact the air traffic system.
