LONDON – Britain’s air traffic control system announced that it had experienced a technical problem on Monday This threatened to delay and cancel flights in and out of the country on a crowded national holiday.
“We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have implemented traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety,” a spokesperson for Britain’s National Air Traffic Service told NBC News after 12:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. ET).
She added that engineers are working to find and fix the bug, but it was not clear how long it would take to fix the problem.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the company said air traffic personnel are having to manually enter flight plans.
“The technical issue that occurred this morning is affecting our ability to process flight plans automatically,” they said. “Until our engineers fix this issue, the flight plans are entered manually which means we can’t process them in the same size, so we have implemented restrictions on the traffic flow.”
“Our technical experts are looking into all possible solutions to rectify this as quickly as possible,” they said.
“As a result of national airspace issues, flights across the UK have been disrupted,” Heathrow Airport, London’s largest international airport, said.
London’s Stansted and Gatwick airports, as well as Manchester airport in northern England, said flights were affected by the problem.
The European air traffic authority Eurocontrol has warned of “very significant” delays due to a “failure of the flight data processing system” in the UK.
Earlier, Scottish airline Logan Air said in a statement mail X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, reported that a “network-wide failure of the UK’s air traffic control computer systems” occurred early Monday.
The airline said it hoped to be able to operate most flights within Scotland with minimal disruption, but said north-south and international flights could experience delays as a result of the problem.
The incident comes on a busy travel day for UK residents, as Monday is a nationwide public holiday.
A number of social media users said they were stuck on planes on the tarmac. NBC News was not immediately able to verify their accounts.
said one traveler Reuters They said they were on board a plane that was being held on the tarmac in Budapest, and the pilot said the pilot had told the passengers that the plane was delayed due to a major computer glitch.
They said passengers faced a potential delay of between 8 and 12 hours. NBC News was not immediately able to verify this.
This is a developing story. . Please check back for updates
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