Travellers were caught up in the disruption after hundreds of flights were cancelled following a Nats technical issue on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers who have been affected by Tuesday’s air traffic control problems are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation”, the aviation regulator has said.
Travellers were caught up in the disruption after hundreds of flights were cancelled following a Nats technical issue.
Cancellations and delays continued on Wednesday as airlines dealt with knock-on impacts at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Wednesday said passengers are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident”.
A CAA spokesperson said: “We know many passengers have faced significant disruption and frustration following the Nats system issue on Tuesday September 8 and we understand the impact this has had on their travel plans.”
They added: “We consider that disruption caused by the Nats outage is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.
“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.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday afternoon that she did not believe the air traffic control issue was “unavoidable”.
Addressing the Commons, she said: “A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions, and delays.
“I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption.
“We often take for granted the way in which our aviation system just works, but yesterday that was not the case.
“Safety must remain air traffic controllers’ overriding priority, and 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.
“We also spoke this morning about how Nats responded to resolve and minimise the disruption as quickly as possible, and I am grateful to the airports and airlines who responded straight away.”
Ms Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.
Nats also said a full investigation will be conducted into the issue.
According to Cirium, the aviation analytics company, 2,145 flights have been affected over the last two days.
It said a total of 399 flights were cancelled or did not fly on Wednesday. The worst affected airport was London Heathrow, which saw 79 out of a total of 666 departure flights affected.
The worst affected airline was EasyJet, which saw 31 of its 614 flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday affected.
British Airways said the fault had forced it to cancel almost 550 of its flights, which had impacted more than 85,000 passengers.
The airline said it was “incredibly sorry” to its customers and that the issue had been “entirely out of our control”.
Grandfather Kevin Turner travelled from his home in Thailand to the UK to attend his daughter’s wedding in Ischia.
About an hour before he and his daughter arrived at Heathrow early on Wednesday morning, they were told their Naples-bound flight had been cancelled.
The 77-year-old told the Press Association: “I’ve come all the way from Thailand just for this wedding and I can’t walk properly because I had a bad operation a couple of years ago – so this will probably be the last time I’ll be able to make this trip, it’s like a golden opportunity and I feel a little bit let down.”
They now hope to travel to Gatwick, fly to Milan, catch another flight to Naples early on Thursday and then a boat to Ischia.
The wedding is on Sunday, but events start on Friday with a welcome to their friends, who have already arrived.
Nats has apologised for disruption to passengers and airlines, for which Mr Rolfe said he took “full responsibility”.
The chief executive has come under fire from Wizz Air following the fault, while Ryanair called on Mr Rolfe to resign.
BA 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”.
A BA spokesperson said: “We’ve heard reassurances before, but then we’re faced with issues like this yet again.
“Our customers and colleagues are tired of dealing with these issues, time after time. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Downing Street said the Government still had confidence in Mr Rolfe.
