More flights cancelled after air traffic glitch

British Airways had to cancel more flights today due to the knock-on effect of yesterday's air traffic control computer glitch.

The axed flights were at Heathrow airport and were confined to a small number of domestic and European short-haul routes.

But other airports which had suffered delays and cancellations due to Thursday afternoon's problem were back to normal today.

BA had borne the brunt of the 35 flight cancellations from Heathrow on Thursday evening.

A BA spokesman said today: "Some of our planes are in the wrong location due to yesterday's cancellations, but the flights we've had to cancel today are all on multi-frequency routes and we are not experiencing any delays to other services."

Luton and Cardiff were among the airports hit by the fault, which happened just before 4pm yesterday at the main Swanwick control centre in Hampshire run by air traffic control company Nats.

A spokesman for Luton airport said today: "We had to cancel nine flights yesterday but everything is back to normal today."

At Cardiff yesterday passengers travelling to Belfast, Newcastle and Edinburgh saw their flights cancelled and others faced delays of up to two and a half hours.

A spokesman for Cardiff airport said today: "Everything is fine now."

The computer problem led Nats to restrict the number of planes entering UK airspace as well as those taking off from a number of major airports.

Airports affected included Gatwick, Stansted and London City, while about a dozen flights were cancelled at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports.

Nats' operational performance director Ian Hall apologised to those affected and said safety had not been compromised at any stage.

He went on: "We handle nearly 2.5 million flights a year and our systems are incredibly resilient. We take every step to avoid any problems but are always aware that in maintaining and updating highly complex systems we can experience difficulties."