Flight operations have been severely disrupted at several London airports following a failure in the flight plan processing system operated by National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the UK’s air traffic control service.
According to Air Plus News, an aviation news and press review service, the system failure on Tuesday significantly affected departures at major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.
“Departures are particularly affected at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and several other UK airports. Arrivals continue overall, but with regulations and cascading delays,” Air Plus News reported.
The aviation news service later reported a total suspension of operations at London Heathrow Airport, saying there were temporarily no takeoffs or landings because of the NATS flight processing system failure.
It said a large number of flights were being diverted, including Japan Airlines Flight 43, which was diverted to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Meanwhile, flight-tracking platform Flightradar24 reported that nearly 300 flights had been cancelled by Tuesday afternoon as NATS systems began returning to normal.
According to Flightradar24, the cancellations included 96 British Airways flights, 92 operated by easyJet, 20 by KLM, 12 by Lufthansa and 11 by Swiss.
The disruption also affected flights in and out of other major UK airports, including Manchester and Birmingham, according to the flight-tracking platform.
The extent of the disruption and the time required for normal operations to fully resume remained unclear.
