Newcastle Airport provides update on when normal service will resume

Newcastle Airport has said it hopes operations will be back to normal tonight after major disruption caused by a technical fault in the UK’s air traffic control (ATC) system.

A total of 32 of 82 scheduled flights on Monday were cancelled due to the incident.

Graeme Mason, chief communications officer for Newcastle Airport, described the situation as "challenging" but said he was optimistic operations would normalise by the end of the day.

The issue started on Monday after ATC provider National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered what it described as a “technical issue” preventing it from automatically processing flight plans.

This resulted in the number of flights being restricted while the plans were checked manually, leading more than a quarter of flights at UK airports to be cancelled.

Nats said at 3:15pm on Monday the problem was resolved, but disruption continued into Tuesday as many aircraft and crews were out of position.

Mr Mason said: "Yesterday was quite challenging, we had a number of cancellations. Out of about 82 flights we unfortunately had 32 cancellations.

"Today we're very optimistic that things will normalise by the end of the day. The amount of disruption today compared to yesterday is a lot less.

"We're urging people to keep in touch with their airline, check the arrival and departure information on the airport website and on the app but I would urge people to recognise that will change.

"As you'll see from the departure board it's looking a lot better than it was yesterday."

He added: "During the course of yesterday afternoon and into the evening was the worst affected. We activated our emergency response so we were all in managing the situation, working closely with airlines and ground handlers and getting regular updates from national air traffic services in terms of the latest situation.

"The aim is to get things up and running properly today. We expect to be near normal operations by the end of the day."

One passenger arrived in Newcastle from Faro 24 hours later than he had hoped to return to the UK. His Easyjet flight to London was cancelled but he booked new flights to Newcastle with Ryanair, where he arrived on Tuesday morning.

He said: "After three days on a stag it was the least optimal situation."

He added: "We're not meant to be Newcastle. There was a running joke we were going to do to Newcastle and now we're here. It was unexpected.

"Now we've got to get to London."

In response, an Easyjet spokesperson said: “While the majority of our flying programme is operating as planned today, the knock-on impact of yesterday’s UK ATC systems failure means that some flights this morning were unfortunately unable to operate. We notified customers in advance, providing them with options to transfer their flight for free or receive a refund to help them rearrange their plans.

“While this is outside of our control, we apologise for the difficulty this has caused for our customers and we remain focused on doing all possible to assist and repatriate them as soon as possible at this very busy time of year.

“We recommend that all passengers continue to check their flight status on our Flight Tracker www.easyjet.com/en/flight- tracker for real-time information before travelling to the airport.”

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...