Massive disruption hits UK airports after air traffic control issue

Major disruption was expected to continue at British airports on Wednesday – including Heathrow, one of Europe’s busiest hubs – after an hours-long air traffic control outage triggered widespread delays and cancellations.

Earlier in the day, departure boards at London airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted showed dozens of flights delayed or canceled. Other airports, including Manchester, also reported disruption.

The issue has caused more than 200 flight cancellations across the UK, according to aircraft tracker Flightradar24. Budget airline Ryanair said 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted by the issue and that it had canceled more than 50 scheduled flights.

Heathrow and Gatwick told CNN that flights departing from their airports were impacted by the air traffic control issue.

Departures have since resumed at Heathrow, but arrivals remain canceled, according to a statement from the airport on Tuesday. “Disruption is expected to continue,” it added.

The company that runs the affected system said on Tuesday that the issue had been fixed, but delays at airports remain ongoing.

The recovery from the issue “has taken longer than we had hoped,” NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services, said in a statement.

“We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly,” NATS said, adding it is now operating normally and working to clear the backlog of flights.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Issy Ronald, Caitlin Danahar, Rob North and Billy Stockwell contributed to this report.

周三，英国各大机场（包括欧洲最繁忙的枢纽机场之一希思罗机场）预计将继续出现严重混乱，此前长达数小时的空中交通管制中断引发了大范围的延误和取消。

当天早些时候，伦敦希思罗机场、盖特威克机场和斯坦斯特德机场的航班信息显示屏显示，数十个航班延误或取消。包括曼彻斯特机场在内的其他机场也报告了航班中断的情况。

据航班追踪网站Flightradar24的数据显示，该问题已导致英国各地200多个航班取消。廉价航空公司瑞安航空表示，该问题影响了其6.5万名乘客的出行，并取消了50多个预定航班。

希思罗机场和盖特威克机场告诉 CNN，从他们机场起飞的航班受到了空中交通管制问题的影响。

希思罗机场周二发表声明称，目前航班已恢复出发，但到达航班仍然取消。声明还补充道：“预计航班中断情况还将持续。”

负责运营受影响系统的公司周二表示，该问题已经修复，但机场延误仍在持续。

英国领先的空中交通管制服务提供商NATS在一份声明中表示，从这一问题中恢复过来“比我们希望的要花费更长的时间”。

“我们知道这令人非常沮丧，并对此表示毫无保留的歉意，”NATS表示，并补充说，目前运营已恢复正常，正在努力清理积压的航班。

这是一则正在更新的新闻。

CNN的伊西·罗纳德、凯特琳·达纳哈尔、罗布·诺斯和比利·斯托克韦尔对本报道亦有贡献。