Regulator plans review as Thursday flight data show lingering cancellations

A four-hour shutdown of the UK’s air traffic control system on Tuesday disrupted many thousands of passengers, including travellers whose flights never departed and others who later slept on floors at Heathrow Airport.

Flight data firm Cirium said the aviation system had “stabilised significantly” by Thursday. It reported that 54 of 3,028 scheduled arrivals had been cancelled or were not operating, while 47 of 3,033 scheduled departures were affected.

Aviation Minister Keir Mather told MPs that disruption caused by the Tuesday failure of air traffic control provider Nats was “unacceptable.” The Civil Aviation Authority will conduct an independent review.

Mather said airports had at times lacked the capacity to handle the number of disrupted passengers and described that as a key lesson for the sector. “Passengers may also be entitled to care and assistance while waiting for a delayed or re-routed flight,” he said.

Airlines must get customers to their destination as quickly as possible and at no extra cost after a cancellation, even if that requires booking them with a rival carrier. Passengers may instead take a refund, which should also be offered when a flight is delayed by more than five hours.

Additional compensation is payable under UK and EU rules when an airline is at fault. That compensation did not apply to this disruption because the air traffic control problems were beyond the airlines’ control. Airlines nevertheless faced a bill of millions of pounds.

Delayed passengers must receive food and, depending on the length of the wait, a hotel stay. If an airline does not provide that care, passengers can later seek reimbursement for reasonable expenses, and experts recommend keeping receipts as proof.

Many passengers could not find nearby accommodation after the disruption. A luxury stay would be unlikely to qualify for reimbursement because airlines are required to cover only “reasonable expenses.”

Catie Allen, 30, and Phil Allen, 34, were among those affected. They were seated on a British Airways flight to Ljubljana on Tuesday for what would have been their first holiday in two-and-a-half years, but the flight never took off.

The alternative flight offered to the couple would not have arrived until Saturday morning, four days into their week-long holiday in Slovenia. They chose a refund, but the airline’s chatbot appeared to allow only rebooking, and they waited more than an hour to speak to British Airways by phone before the refund was confirmed. The payment was due to take a week.

British Airways refunded the flight and the couple’s car hire, which had been arranged through the airline. The Allens initially estimated that their separately booked accommodation and excursions left them £1,300 out of pocket, although one excursion was later refunded.

The couple returned home, where they were unpacking and contacting businesses about refunds. Their separately booked hotel stays carried their own terms and conditions, and the late cancellations did not qualify for refunds. One hotel told Catie Allen that it was a family business and could not afford to provide one.

Package holidays are treated differently and are covered in full if a flight is cancelled. “We feel we are penalised for trying to save money,” Catie Allen said after contacting BBC Your Voice about the couple’s situation, although she added that “our problems are very small in the bigger scheme of things.”

Catie Allen, who had worked in the aviation sector, said she was annoyed that the air traffic problem had lasted long enough to ruin the holiday.

“We have been saving tirelessly for this trip and we have lost over £1,000 with no way of getting it back. And most of all, we’ve got no holiday to go on, which we’ve been looking forward to for years,” she said.

The couple said they had been loyal customers of their insurance company for years and had used it for policies ranging from home insurance to pet cover. The insurer told them that a travel insurance claim for the lost funds would be invalid because air traffic issues were outside the policy.

Some passengers also seek reimbursement from credit card providers, but those claims depend on each provider’s terms.