‘It’s been a nightmare’: Passengers face airport chaos after UK air traffic issue – BBC News
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Your account
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
More menu
More menu
Search BBC
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
Close menu
BBC News
Menu
Home
Climate
World
UK
Business
Tech
Science
Entertainment & Arts
Health
In Pictures
More
BBC Verify
Newsbeat
UK
England
N. Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Isle of Man
Guernsey
Jersey
Politics
Local News
‘It’s been a nightmare:’ Passengers face airport chaos after air traffic issue
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
This video cannot be played
Figure caption:
‘Horrendous experience:‘ Passengers react to travel chaos
By
Alex Boyd
and
BBC Your Voice reporters
Published
2 hours ago
Passengers left stranded by an hours-long air traffic control issue at UK airports have told the BBC of nightmare delays, chaotic scenes and waylaid holiday plans.
Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have been hit with flight cancellations and delays throughout Tuesday and Wednesday after a technical problem caused the air traffic outage.
That included newlyweds Sasha and James, who told BBC Your Voice they spent three hours stranded in Wetherspoons at Gatwick after their flight to their honeymoon was cancelled.
Some also described sleeping on airport floors and chaos at baggage reclaim as thousands looked to reorganise their plans, while others have been stranded abroad while trying to get back to the UK.
Nats, the UK’s air traffic control provider, has said flight operations are now stable but airlines have warned of continued knock-on disruption. Passengers have been advised to check their flight status before travelling to airports.
The boss of Nats Martin Rolfe apologised for the disruption and also met with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander on Wednesday, who asked for a full investigation.
Most of the UK’s main airports were hit by the problem including Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Glasgow.
Speaking to the BBC earlier on Wednesday, newly married couple Sasha and James Graham said they were boarding their flight from Gatwick to Funchal on the island of Madeira when they were "turned right back around."
Sasha said:
"We spent three hours stranded in Wetherspoons, making the best of it. It’s certainly not the experience we planned, but I think starting your marriage with a national disruption is certainly very memorable!"
They weren’t able to reclaim their luggage but have since booked onto a new flight.
"’It feels like we will spend our honeymoon at Gatwick,’" Sasha added.
Phil White also spoke of incredibly busy scenes in the airport’s baggage reclaim hall, describing it as "carnage" as an influx of disrupted passengers tried to find their luggage.
"**All the bags from every cancelled flight were sent to one reclaim carousel. So there were a thousand or so people trying to get close enough to get their cases," he said.
"The baggage hall was the worst and they’re very lucky that there wasn’t any sort of incident as tempers frayed and the concourse was getting hotter."
Elsewhere, people spoke of spending the night on the floors of airports and hotels across the globe when flights back into the UK were cancelled.
Sukie Perera, from Cardiff, describing her experience of being stuck in Turkey said "it has been a nightmare" and communication at the airport was poor. She won’t be able to fly home until Thursday but joked that at least "the view is beautiful."
Paul Willows, currently in Rhodes, Greece, with his family said they had to sleep on the floor of a hotel’s conference room.
