UPDATE 15.05pm

PASSENGERS Were left stranded today when a technical problem at an air traffic control centre caused chaos at airports across the UK and Ireland.

The National Air Traffic Service said the issue, which has led to flight delays and cancellations, was unlikely to be fixed until between 6.30pm and 7pm.

 

FLIGHTS have been delayed and cancelled at airports across the UK and Ireland because of a technical problem at an air traffic control centre.

Thousands of people have been affected at major airports including Birmingham, Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick and the National Air Traffic Services does not currently know how long it will take for the situation to be rectified.

The National Air Traffic Services said the issue arose at its control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, in the early hours of the morning when a computing glitch meant the night-time operation failed to properly switch over to the daytime system.

A spokesman said: “Due to a technical problem at Swanwick we are currently experiencing some difficulty switching from night-time to daytime operation.

"At night, when it's quiet, we can combine sectors of airspace. When it gets busy in the daytime, we split the sectors out again. The voice communications system is configured to enable this to happen.

“We experienced a technical problem in the early hours of this morning, which means that it hasn't been possible to reconfigure the voice communications system to split out the sectors for the busier daytime traffic in some areas of the UK enroute airspace.

“Engineers are working to rectify the problem as soon as possible, but this is resulting in some delays. Safety has not been compromised at any time, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience being caused to passengers.”