Flights Grounded Across Major UK Airports Amid Traffic Control Radar Failure

Flights at multiple major UK airports have been grounded due to a “radar failure” at air traffic control.

Thousands of passengers were left stuck on the tarmac at some of the UK’s largest travel hubs on Wednesday.

Departures were paused due to an air traffic control failure, with information from FlightRadar showing hundreds of planes stuck at Heathrow Airport.

Europe’s largest airport confirmed that flights had resumed on Wednesday afternoon, with passengers urged to check travel information online.

Other major airports confirmed to be affected included Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gatwick and Luton.

These major transport hubs have since confirmed that flights have resumed.

However, they warned passengers to check with their airlines about any knock-on delays as operations get back to normal.

In a statement, NATS confirmed there had been a “technical issue” at the air traffic control centre in Swanwick and braced holidaymakers for knock-on delays into the evening.

It read: “As a result of a technical issue, we are limiting the number of aircraft flying in the London control area in order to ensure safety.

“We apologise for any delays this may cause.

“Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon. We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area.

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“We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Posting pictures from grounded plane windows, angry passengers took to social media to tell of their flight woes.

One said: “Every flight in the south of England currently grounded due to problems with air traffic control.

“We are on an EasyJet flight from Luton to Antalya, we were just about to take off. Currently sat with with girls on the flight with no idea what’s going to happen.”

Another continued: “London airspace all shut… No departures from any of the London airports.”

In a statement at the time, Gatwick Airport said the technical issue meant there were no departures while the situation was being resolved.

There were scheduled to be more than 3,000 flights departing UK airports on Wednesday, the equivalent of over 577,000 passengers.