Dubai’s Emirates airline and Qatar Airways have issued travel advisories warning passengers of disruptions to flights to and from the UK, after a technical issue affecting NATS, the country’s air traffic control service provider, hit airports across Britain on Tuesday.
In an update issued late on Tuesday evening, Emirates said flights departing from and arriving at UK airports were “experiencing disruptions” because of the fault. The airline said, “We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Emirates advised customers to check flight status regularly, review operational updates on its website, and monitor their email for notifications on delays, changes or cancellations before heading to the airport.
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Passengers were also asked to update their contact details via the airline’s Manage Your Booking portal to receive the latest information.
Qatar’s national carrier – Qatar Airways – also issued a similar alert, confirming that flights to and from UK airports, as well as those transiting UK airspace, were facing delays and possible rerouting because of the outage. The Doha-based carrier advised passengers to check the latest flight information on its website and mobile app.
Neither airline specified how many flights had been affected or when normal operations were expected to resume.
Botht the carriers operate daily flights to many major UK cities from their Dubai and Doha hubs.
Hundreds of flights at UK’s major airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted – were cancelled and delayed on Tuesday evening after air traffic control provider NATS experienced a technical issue.
“We have identified that the issue was in our flight processing system. Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible,” NATS said in a statement.
“Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time,” they added.
The UK air traffic controller NATS said “recovery from today’s system issue has taken longer than we had hoped.”
In a statement posted on its website, NATS said: “Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights. We are truly sorry for the ongoing flight disruption. We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly. Passengers should continue to check with their airline,” it said in an update at 7.30pm UK time.
Source: Khaleej Times