Air traffic control down over UK currently

[Margoliciously]

Anyone else heard this? A national shutdown of air traffic control as system goes down.

Yep, good news, part of the NATs statement:

"Statement at 15:15 UK time

We have identified and remedied the technical issue affecting our flight planning system this morning. We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system’s performance as we return to normal operations."

Yep stuck at a French airport hotel.

So glad it is fixed and those stuck on runways can hopefully get moving in a few hours or even sooner.
And hoping my flight and anyone else's on this thread isn't affected too much !

I've called my local Tui and they said just go as normal in the morning.

Nice and quiet skies over London this afternoon- only long haul seems to be arriving and that is tailing off too.

People would be shocked if they knew how old many of the systems and platforms used by NATS are.

Just seen this. Due to leave the US in a few hours to fly back to Heathrow so will see what the score is.

If it's a UK carrier the first big question would be did the aircraft you are planned to be on escape the UK before all this started.....

While this is true I’d recommend downloading the flight radar app (free version is fine) and later today the flight statuses for tomorrow’s flights should be showing fairly accurately. Remember delays today will affect many holiday flights tomorrow but things should be at least clearer rather than indefinite delays.

Thanks @notimagain. It's showing ours (not BA) as OK (though I'm sceptical....) but our friends' flight with an 8 hour delay.

OK, Good Luck...

I saw this earlier.

FWIW, we are bit of a distance from the Bristol airport flightpath, but I realise we can now hear a few planes flying over the garden.

I suspect that they have tried to prioritise long-haul flights to ensure that existing crews can fly.

BH Monday is possibly the worst day for this to happen (barring Xmas).

Can now hear planes in west London

Clearly ongoing issues at MAN because 3 planes have gone down the runway, aborted to take off and are now lining up again. A batch of planes went off but nothing is going anywhere right now.

They actually said they may have to go into manual mode which will take much much longer . Also one plane in lanzarote were told they may be on the tarmac for 8 hours without refreshments .

Be interested in your update as Tui ……… well hope they don’t muck you about .

Twitter gives more info . Apparently glitch remedied however could take a long time to sort out the back log .

up to 70 to 80 % of flights were cancelled from some airports .

We landed around midday in Stanstead, am guessing just before the problems started. Family coming back on a later flight were due to take off at 5:30pm & have been delayed until 3:40am, sounds like a nightmare.

Hope all of you in this awful situation get sorted ASAP, particularly the poster who's on board the plane at Palma airport with small DC. Only virtual, but wish it was real-🍷.

Not NATS I know, but the company I worked for was involved with the BA outage some years ago.
One of their core systems was from the 90s and still running on hardware from that era

@Madcats

I suspect that they have tried to prioritise long-haul flights to ensure that existing crews can fly.

As far as this mornings/early PMs events were concerned and flights into the UK I think it was simply a case that it was safer and easier to ground stop UK bound short haul flights in Europe to free up airspace/capacity, rather than start diverting Long haul flights.

Also in terms of arrivals the long hauls were already in the air!

That’s not true. 7 to 8%. However more are likely to be cancelled as the day goes on.

Was feeling a little more positive but back to anxiety again now ! I see the airports are all saying significant delays still expected and cancellations.
Really hoping 6am flight isn't cancelled will be so upsetting otherwise

We're on the flight path for Gatwick inbound flights and it has been noticeably quiet today.