LONDON — The head of Britain’s air traffic control system was summoned to a meeting with the country’s transport minister as airlines scrambled Wednesday to dig out from the backlog triggered by technical problems that forced the cancellation of more than 1,750 flights. The problems first surfaced on Tuesday, disrupting travel across the U.K. and stranding passengers for hours on airport runways and in terminals. Flight delays were expected to continue through the day Wednesday as airlines rebook stranded passengers and work to reposition aircraft left at the wrong airports by the cancellations. Britain’s National Air Traffic Services, or NATS, which operates the air traffic control system, attributed the problems to “an issue in our flight processing system” that has been resolved. Delays rippled across 15 U.K. airports and beyond as airlines and airports worked to clear a huge backlog of delayed flights. In a statement on X, Heathrow, Europe’s largest airport, urged passengers to check their flight status before travelling to the airport and to “only travel if your flight is confirmed to be operating.” “We apologize to those affected and have extra colleagues across our terminals to support passengers while we work with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations as quickly as possible,” Heathrow said. Budget carriers Ryanair and Wizz Air have called for the head of the NATS, Martin Rolfe, to consider resigning after a second major outage hit the air traffic control system in three years. Budget airline EasyJet said some of its flights were “unable to operate” and that the system failure caused “delays to flights across Europe.” Rolfe on Wednesday apologized for the inconvenience caused by the outage but said the U.K. air traffic control system remains one of the safest and most efficient in the world. “Our job is also to make sure that people stay safe,” he told the BBC. “We never do this lightly. We only ever do it when there is an issue that cannot be resolved quickly, and we have to take action to make (sure) those who are flying, who are in the air at that time, are safe. And when we can restore these incredibly complex systems we do so as quickly as we can.” Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, called on Rolfe to resign. On Tuesday, Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights. “How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure Nats CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?’’ McMahon said. “Over three years after Nats’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed.’’ But Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander sought further explanation and summoned Rolfe for a meeting. “I am seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job,” she said in a post on X. Affected airports included Heathrow and Gatwick as well as those in Manchester, Birmingham and Scotland. They warned passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline. Danica Kirka, The Associated Press
