Cyberattack ruled out in UK air traffic glitch as more flights axed

UK air travellers faced more misery Wednesday with 177 flights scrapped across the country, as Britain's air traffic control service scrambled to recover from a technical glitch which it ruled out as a cyberattack.

Aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24 revealed the fresh cancellations after 1,300 flights to and from UK airports were axed Tuesday, with tens of thousands of customers affected at British Airways alone.

Nearly all the latest flights were at London Heathrow, Britain's busiest airport, FlightRadar24 wrote on X.

The head of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), Martin Rolfe, meanwhile said "we have at this point ruled out cyber" as a cause.

"We don't believe it was a cyberattack," he told BBC Radio.

Rolfe said NATS will be doing a "very, very thorough" investigation into what exactly caused the incident.

NATS warned in an X post late Tuesday that "it will take time to recover" from the outage.

UK news outlets reported that British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander had summoned Rolfe to a meeting with her on Wednesday.

Rolfe earlier told Sky News that he accepted "full responsibility" but declined to say if he was considering quitting his job.

Alexander said on X that she was "seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job."

Neal McMahon, chief operations officer at Irish no-frills airline Ryanair, called for Rolfe to be fired, accusing him of having "failed UK travellers."

AFP