LONDON: At least 16 flights to and from London’s Heathrow Airport were canceled on Thursday, a day after technical problems with Britain’s air traffic control system caused widespread disruption across the country’s airports.
National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides air traffic control services for planes flying in UK airspace and the eastern part of the North Atlantic, said on Wednesday its systems were fully operational with capacity returning to normal after it switched to a back-up system.
The second outage in as many years at NATS also affected Gatwick Airport near London, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland and other locations, resulting in 122 cancelations as of 1830 GMT on Wednesday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Heathrow’s website showed that at least 16 flights, including departures to Brussels and Toronto and arrivals from New York and Berlin, had been canceled on Thursday.
Heathrow, Britain’s largest and Europe’s busiest airport, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the latest cancelations.
Ryanair Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon called on NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign, saying no lessons had been learnt since the August 2023 disruption caused by a malfunctioning in the automatic processing of flight plans.
NATS, which on Wednesday apologized to those affected by the failure, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a response to McMahon’s comments.
Heathrow was also hit by a fire at a power sub-station in March which stranded thousands of passengers.
London’s Heathrow hit by more flight cancelations after air traffic failure
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London’s Heathrow hit by more flight cancelations after air traffic failure
- The second outage in as many years at NATS also affected Gatwick Airport near London, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland and other locations
At least three dead as migrant boat capsizes off Greek island
- An accident occurred when the vessel approached the migrants’ wooden boat
- The search for survivors was continuing with four patrol boats
ATHENS: The bodies of three migrants were picked up in waters off the Greek island of Crete during a rescue effort involving a commercial ship, authorities said Friday.
Twenty migrants were rescued by the commercial vessel which was directed to the area on the orders of the Greek Search and Rescue Center.
According to Greek public broadcaster ERT, an accident occurred when the vessel approached the migrants’ wooden boat. As the passengers tried to climb up ladders into the vessel a sudden movement caused the small boat to capsize.
The search for survivors was continuing with four patrol boats, an aircraft, and two ships from the European border agency Frontex, a spokesperson for the Greek coast guard told AFP.
According to ERT, survivors said about 50 people were aboard the wooden boat.
A second boat carrying around forty migrants was spotted in the area, triggering another rescue operation.
For over a year, migrants have been attempting the perilous crossing from Libya to Crete, the gateway to the European Union.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 16,770 people seeking asylum in the EU arrived in Crete in 2025.
Faced with the surge in arrivals, the conservative Greek government suspended the processing of asylum applications for three months last summer, particularly for those arriving from Libya.
UNHCR says 107 people died or went missing in Greek waters in 2025.
