Passengers travelling between the UK and US faced continuing disruption after a nationwide ground stop halted flights across America, leaving travellers stranded overnight and causing lengthy delays at British airports.
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the ground stop after around four hours, but warned disruption could continue as airlines worked through cancellations, rebookings and delayed services.
Heathrow’s Terminal 5 arrivals board showed one British Airways flight from Denver, BA218, running almost 26 hours late. It was due to arrive at 9.10am but was estimated to land at 11.06am on Sunday.
Other services were also badly affected. BA174 from New York and BA262 from Los Angeles were shown as around seven hours late, with the Los Angeles flight’s arrival moved from 10am to 5.38pm.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority warned passengers flying between Britain and the US to check with their airline before setting off for the airport.
Tim Johnson, the authority’s consumer director, said there could be “some follow-on disruption” while airlines rebooked passengers and restored normal services.
At Manchester Airport, three Virgin Atlantic flights to the US due to depart on Saturday morning were expected to be affected if the problem was not resolved quickly.
British Airways apologised for possible delays and cancellations linked to the ground stop, while advising passengers to travel to the airport at their original departure time unless told otherwise. The airline said its flights were otherwise operating normally.
Virgin Atlantic said it was monitoring the situation and assessing the effect on its services. The airline advised customers due to travel to check their flight status before leaving for the airport.
The disruption was felt keenly by passengers already at UK airports. David Parejo, who was travelling to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a work conference, said his 9.55am American Airlines flight had been cancelled.
“I received an email at 5am today but I didn’t check until I got to the airport,” he said. His replacement flight was due to leave at 2pm, leaving him with a five-hour wait at Heathrow.
Mr Parejo said he had been required to queue at the airline’s desk to be rebooked, after finding no option to make the change through the app.
Another passenger, Renata Hoare, said her Virgin Atlantic flight to New York was cancelled after she had boarded and the aircraft doors had been closed.
“At 9.10pm we got informed by the captain that there was an issue in the States, they couldn’t identify what was, and that we were being deboarded,” she said. The airline put her up in a hotel and rebooked her on a later service to Montego Bay in Jamaica via New York.
US air traffic system under scrutiny
US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the introduction of new technology into an older air traffic control system had overwhelmed it. He said he could not rule out another outage.
Mr Mullin said it did not appear that a cyber attack or rogue artificial intelligence had caused the incident.
The comments came days after a new AI-supported system, known as Strategic Management of Airspace, or SMART, was introduced at 22 air route traffic control centres. The tool brings together about 200 data streams on to one platform.
Donald Trump said the disruption could have been caused by “old broken stuff”, pointing to the age of America’s air traffic control systems. The Federal Aviation Administration has said outdated equipment at more than 400 sites would be replaced by the end of 2028.
At US airports, travellers were left sleeping in terminals and waiting for rebooked flights after the nationwide stoppage. Although flights resumed, the knock-on effects continued to be felt by passengers on both sides of the Atlantic.
