Control glitch grounds flights in Britain

THOUSANDS of Irish air passengers saw their flights either cancelled or badly delayed by a massive air traffic control glitch in Britain.

Aer Lingus was forced to cancel 10 flights into and out of Britain yesterday and experienced long delays on 12 others including a number where flights were due to fly to through British airspace from Ireland to Europe.

Ryanair was also experiencing lengthy delays but was unavailable to confirm how many of its flights, if any, had to be cancelled.

British Airways also cancelled or delayed a number of its services into and out of Irish airports.

The problem started just before 4pm when a fault occurred at one of the systems at Swanwick Air Traffic Control Centre in Hampshire.

That led air traffic control company NATS to restrict the number of planes entering British airspace as well as those taking off and landing in major British airports, causing serious disruption.

The problem was fixed by 7pm but there had already been too many aircraft grounded to be able to return to normal service straight away.