'Our flight was cancelled without any warning' - Stourbridge pair among thousands hit by air traffic control glitch

John Carr and James Hedges were among thousands of passengers  left stranded after air traffic control (ATC) provider Nats suffered a technical problem which caused major disruption on Wednesday afternoon.

Nats today said its systems were “fully operational” and that air traffic capacity is “returning to normal” after the technical glitch hit flights following restrictions on the number of aircraft which could be in the air in England and Wales. It said efforts were underway to clear the flight backlog at airports now that departures had resumed.

Mr Carr, aged 35 and a chiropodist from Stourbridge, was on his way to Norway to be best man at his brother's wedding when he spotted that his flight was cancelled. He claimed they did not receive any warning of the cancellation and were left working out what to do next.

“I’m pretty gutted. We’ve got loads of stuff in the suitcases to set up the venue, because we’re obviously flying to Norway. We’ve got the wedding rehearsal to do. It’s quite stressful. We had no idea.

“There was nothing that the airport had said out on the speaker phones, or anything like that. There was no warning from them or the airline that said it was cancelled. It’s rubbish. There’s nothing we can do. We don’t know what we’re going to do - in terms of accommodation.

“We have put our cars in special car compounds for the next six days.”

James Hedges added: “We found out today; we’d already checked in and gone through the security checks. We were in the departures lounge, and we were literally sitting down having a burger when it came up on the screen. 

"Our flight was still showing as if it was leaving, and they were waiting to give us a gate and that that would be given at 4.45pm. When that time came around, it then switched to cancelled.”

The issue on Wednesday left many aircraft and flight crew out of position.

While it was ongoing, British Airways (BA) said the problem was “affecting the vast majority of our flights”, while Birmingham airport said “departing flights from many UK airports have been suspended”.

Several flights scheduled to arrive at UK airports were forced to conduct holding patterns or divert elsewhere.

Consumer service Which? advised that passengers who have suffered delays or cancellations could have rights to food or a hotel stay.

Which? deputy editor Naomi Leach said: “If your flight is cancelled or delayed, you’re unlikely to be owed compensation by the airline as the technical issue is considered an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ and out of the airline’s control.

The “technical issue” responsible for disruption was at Nats’ control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, according to the company.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said continued disruption was expected and urged passengers to check with individual airports.