‘A complete nightmare’: Airport chaos leaves Brits stranded for 16 hours – and most won’t get a penny back

Airport chaos has left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing an ‘absolute nightmare’ after an issue with the UK’s air traffic control (ATC)’s ‘flight processing system’ yesterday.

National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides ATC services to 15 airports across the country, suffered a major technical failure on Tuesday, leading to mayhem at hubs including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham.

Some 600 flights were cancelled yesterday, with disruption quickly spreading to all major British airports and also hitting transport centres across Europe.

Although NATS said yesterday it had identified and implemented a fix for the issue, the chaos continued this morning with around 250 flights cancelled at Heathrow alone by 6am, while British Airways has axed more than 190.

Among those stranded yesterday was former F1 driver and broadcaster Martin Brundle, who reported being stuck on a plane for nine hours at Heathrow.

Taking to social media, Mr Brundle said: ‘Great work BA and Heathrow. Nine hours and counting sitting on a plane which has travelled nowhere. 

‘At a remote parking bay, no food throughout, and mother/baby and a person with a medical condition desperate to get off. As is everyone else. 

‘Toilets no longer available as blocked. No sign of steps or buses. And that’s before the wait for luggage. Pathetic and dangerous lack of corporate contingency and responsibility.’

US actress Rebel Wilson was also at Heathrow yesterday, and shared footage of the queues to her Instagram followers. 

Meanwhile, Julia Kobrin and her daughter Daniela are stranded in Milan, Italy, after originally planning to return home yesterday.

The pair told the Daily Mail they were on a BA flight on Tuesday and were stuck on the tarmac for six hours before passengers were finally informed it had been cancelled.

They have still heard nothing from the airline despite being on the phone to the airline until 3am.

Fortunately, the pair were able to find a hotel room overnight and Mrs Kobrin’s husband has booked them alternative flights – albeit on a circuitous route.

Assuming they go ahead as scheduled, the mother and daughter will return to Britain via Menorca – travelling an extra 700 miles in the process.

In Rhodes, Greece, one traveller shared photographs with the Mail of a lengthy queue outside the airport as Brits tried to return to the UK.

After waiting outside all night, he said he and around 120 people – including babies, elderly people and those with disabilities – were given access to a conference room to sleep in at around 5.30am.

‘We are all just sitting in the conference room with no information.’ The passenger added those stranded had been rebooked on an alternative flight for early Thursday morning.

Back at Gatwick, Marcus Wareham photographed chaotic scenes as people were stuck for hours inside the airport, unable to leave.

Large crowds were seen queuing as they tried to get through immigration to return home.

Mr Wareham had already waited for his flight for eight hours before it was cancelled.

‘It now appears as though we cannot leave the airport at the passport e-gates don’t seem to be working either,’ Mr Wareham said yesterday.

‘You couldn’t make it up. Gatwick is a national embarrassment. The head of NATs should be fired immediately.’

He added it took a further four hours to leave Gatwick and he has rebooked himself on a flight today.’

‘Back home from Spain after a complete nightmare and stressful journey’, Mark Houghton wrote on social media. He arrived at Barcelona Airport on Tuesday to be told his flight was cancelled. 

In the end, he was offered tickets for a flight to Gatwick which was delayed by five hours when he arrived at the gate. 

‘We were on the edge of the runway, and then the captain announced ‘I’m afraid we are not allowed to take off we have to sit here for another hour and a half,” he recalled.

Eventually, the passenger arrived home at 3.30am. Mr Houghton added: ‘Glad to be back to home sweet home, but feeling sorry for some of my friends who won’t be able to get home for two days because of the backlog.’

Louise Jarvis revealed how a group of eight travellers found themselves stuck at Gatwick for 16 hours due to the chaos and ‘will now lose two precious days of their holiday through no fault of their own’.

‘Their flight was cancelled this morning. They rebooked onto another flight this afternoon themselves — only for that flight to be cancelled late this evening too,’ she wrote.

Ms Jarvis described baggage claim as ‘absolute chaos’ and explained how the group booked an alternative flight from Bristol ‘to try and get away and salvage what they can of their holiday’.

‘Two cancelled flights. 16 hours at Gatwick. Two days of their holiday lost. And passengers left to sort themselves out,’ she fumed. 

Sarah Holt explained how the delays have prevented her from getting home from her trip to Portugal altogether: ‘Yesterday I arrived at Lisbon airport in good time for my 4.30pm flight to Heathrow expecting to land around 7.30pm and head to my pre-paid for hotel for the night.

‘A few minutes after arriving at the airport I was informed by BA that my flight was delayed. Then there was another update that the delay had been extended, then extended again, then finally, at 7pm, cancelled.

‘There were queues to leave the airport, as so many people had had their flights cancelled. Lines were snaking away from lost luggage as miserable let down passengers tried to locate the bags they had checked in a few hours before. 

‘BA told me to pay for my own hotel in Lisbon for the night and to claim it back. I finally got to my room at 10pm. BA have rebooked me onto the next available flight, which isn’t until Thursday. So I’m stranded here.

‘I’m lucky I don’t have children with me, but I have missed two days of paid for work. There are currently displaced passengers all over Lisbon!’ 

Paige and Omar Iannarino told the Mail: ‘We had a layover at Heathrow after traveling from Albania. We live in the US and have been traveling for more than two weeks, and at this point, we just want to get home to Texas.

‘To make matters even worse, there are no hotels available, leaving us with no choice but to spend the night at the airport if we’re eventually allowed off the plane. There is still no clear end in sight.

‘After more than six hours trapped on the runway, exhausted and completely helpless, this has been an absolute nightmare.’

And Richard Kennedy-Head and his wife have had to rearrange their trip home to Australia after embarking on four months of travelling to celebrate their retirement. 

The couple were due to leave Corfu last night and then fly back to Australia today, but they’ve now been told the earliest available flight to Heathrow is now Friday. 

‘Due to this change in flights, it has meant we will miss our flight tonight to Sydney. So 3pm this morning we had to arrange to get this moved to Sunday which will cost an extra £900. 

‘As this flight was booked separately to our BA flight we will have to try to get the cost back through our travel insurance, not holding my breath!’ 

At Heathrow’s terminal 4, hundreds of passengers are sleeping on yoga mats on the ground after a long night of travel chaos.

Flights are running but some have been cancelled and there are delays on many of the ones which are due to take off today.

Patrick Weston, 45, was planning to fly out to Gothenburg in Sweden this morning but it has been cancelled.

Mr Weston, of Enfield, said: ‘It’s absolute chaos here. You cannot believe this can keep happening in Britain in 2026 with all the technology we have.

‘It was a minibreak for me. I have no idea what is happening. There’s just a feeling of helplessness. It shouldn’t be like this in this day and age. That’s the frustrating part. Of course, things go wrong. But this is just a regular occurrence now.’

Meanwhile, Carolyn Pearson told the Daily Mail how she was delayed for over four hours yesterday heading from Jersey to Leeds Bradford. 

‘The airport was generally chilled out there was good passenger camaraderie and there was food to buy and free water filling stations. I felt sorrier for passengers who had sat in the airport for 7 hours only to have their flights eventually cancelled,’ she said. 

According to the passenger, crew members on her flight ‘looked exhausted’ but they ‘soldiered on’ and provided a food and beverage service. 

‘Given the high safety risk associated with air traffic, I applaud NATS for getting things operational as quickly as they did,’ Ms Pearson added.

Personal trainer Cathy Smith and her partner Jack Clark, a couple from Baltimore were returning from Lisbon when their BA flight was caught up in the chaos.

Cathy said: ‘We were on the tarmac for four hours. Staff gave us rigatoni and chicken curry and water, but they didn’t know what was happening.’

Jack explained that as they had had no signal on the grounded plane they’d been unable to call ahead to book a hotel room.

He added: ‘By the time passengers were asked to disembark the flight in the evening there were no hotels available for 30 miles. We spent the night on chairs in the airport and are hoping to fly this afternoon.’

Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of NATS, has promised there would be a ‘very, very thorough investigation’ into the incident, as Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, called on Mr Rolfe to resign.

Mr McMahon said: ‘How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure Nats CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?

‘Over three years after Nats’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable ATC (air traffic control) delays of up to eight hours today due a critical Nats ATC system failing.’

Mr McMahon said Tuesday’s incident was caused by ‘exactly the same issue’ as an incident in 2023.

Mr Rolfe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We will be doing a very, very thorough and full investigation. We have at this point ruled out cyber, we don’t believe it was a cyber attack.

‘My focus and that of the team has been on both getting our system operating back up normally, which it is now, but there’s obviously a huge tail to the disruption and we’ll be working on that through the course of today.

‘And then our attention will turn to exactly what’s happened in this particular incident. What I will say is I don’t believe we’ve ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we’ve never seen in 50 years of operation.’

Mr Rolfe also apologised for the disruption, adding: ‘Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems. We never want them to. We always hope they won’t, but we absolutely plan for them to and make sure we handle them properly.

‘I would say the UK has one of the best reputations in the world for its air traffic control service, both from a safety perspective and from a resilience perspective.

‘NATS was actually a partial privatisation 25 years ago, and since that point, it’s had access to funding. We’ve invested way more than a billion in technology over that time, our service has consistently improved. Our safety is consistently improved from a very good base.

‘But all of those things don’t detract from the fact that when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologise.’

To make matters worse, those caught up in the disruption might not be entitled to compensation from their airline according to Which?.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel said: ‘These air traffic control disruptions will leave many travellers feeling concerned about flight delays or possible cancellations.

‘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.

‘However, you do have a right to food or a hotel stay depending on the length of the delay, but be sure you keep the receipts as you will need to claim this back from the airline.

‘If you are due to travel today or tomorrow, check the advice from your airport, tour operator, airline apps, or airport social media feeds for the most up to date advice.’

Alicia Hempsted, travel insurance expert at MoneySuperMarket, echoed this and explained that passengers are ‘only entitled to compensation if your flight is delayed for more than 3 hours and if the airline was at fault’.

Technical issues, such as the one seen currently, are not usually covered by this policy. Ms Hempsted said: ‘It’s highly unlikely that an unprecedented technical issue with air traffic control would qualify.’

Travel insurance may cover passengers for any delays or cancellations, depending on the policy. 

‘If your policy includes travel disruption cover, then it may be possible to claim for disruption or financial losses incurred as a result of your trip being delayed or cancelled,’ she said.

‘However, it’s worth noting that not all policies cover this as standard, and cover levels, conditions, and exclusions can vary between providers, so it’s important to check with your insurer first to understand what support may be available.

‘If your travel plans are affected, check your policy documents to understand what could be covered. Be sure to save all receipts for any costs incurred, as you may need these to make a claim.’

Luke Petherbridge, director of public affairs at ABTA said: ‘If your flight has been delayed or cancelled, customers will have rights, which will vary depending on whether they booked their flight separately or as part of a package.

‘ABTA members will be supporting those booked with them, to help make alternative arrangements, and we have advice on abta.com to help people understand their rights.

‘While the immediate priority is supporting customers, as this isn’t the first NATS outage to cause widespread disruption, the industry and the public will want answers as to what has gone wrong, what lessons are being learned, and how the system will be made more resilient to avoid this happening again.’

In an update on X this morning, Gatwick said: ‘Flights have now resumed from London Gatwick. However, we still anticipate that it will take time for our operations to fully return to normal. 

‘Passengers should continue to check with their airlines for more information regarding their flights.’

Meanwhile, a Heathrow spokesman told the Mail: ‘Following yesterday’s technical issue affecting NATS air traffic control, Heathrow’s operations are recovering.

‘Flights are operating today, but we are expecting knock-on impacts as aircraft and crew reposition. We advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest flight information and to only travel to Heathrow if they have a confirmed flight operating today. 

‘We know how frustrating this situation is and apologise to those affected. We have extra colleagues on hand to support across our terminals and are working closely with our local NATS team and airline partners to recover normal operations as quickly as possible.’