UK flights resume amid ongoing disruption from air traffic outage

Flights from British airports resumed early on Wednesday after a major air traffic control failure, but hubs warned that it would take time for operations to return to normal after disruption left aircraft in the wrong places.

The hours-long shutdown on Tuesday, which resulted in the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded, has ramped up pressure on air traffic control provider NATS and its boss Martin Rolfe.

Ryanair RYA.I, Europe's biggest airline, had already called for him to resign for his role in the last system meltdown in August 2023, when cancelled flights cost operators £100 million ($135 million).

As operations restarted, Heathrow Airport, near London, said passengers should check with their airline before heading to the airport as schedules would have changed due to the problems on Tuesday.

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"We are expecting knock-on impacts as aircraft and crew reposition," the UK's busiest hub said in a statement.

"We know how frustrating this situation is and ... are working closely with our local NATS team and airline partners to recover normal operations as quickly as possible."

London Gatwick, Britain's second busiest airport, also advised passengers to check with their airline first.

Ryanair said around 150,000 of its passengers had been affected by the outage after it cancelled more than 200 flights, while British Airways said it had cancelled or diverted 100 flights with tens of thousands impacted.