Some 300 flights have been cancelled on Tuesday, following the grounding of thousands on Monday due to an air traffic control fault, prompting criticism of airlines.
Though the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) failure, which forced controllers to turn to manually inputting flight data, was said to be fixed on Monday afternoon, disruption has continued.
Some 75 flights are said to have been cancelled at Gatwick, with 74 axed at Heathrow, alongside further flights at the likes of Manchester, Stansted, Luton and Edinburgh.
The cancellations are likely to have hit over 300,000 people, prompting huge pressure on airlines to accommodate and feed those affected.
Airlines should be “proactively” communicating with passengers and take “every possible step” to address the disruption, Downing Street said on Tuesday.
Individual accounts have suggested some stranded passengers have been offered little information about alternative flights as the chaos continues though.
Portia Oduba slated easyJet on Instagram after becoming stranded in Greece with her husband - television presenter Ore Oduba - and their children.
“easyJet have cancelled all flights leaving till Sunday,” she said before the family booked an alternative flight
“But it's ok. They've offered us a voucher for the next time we fly. Maybe we can fly home on that, magic carpet style."
A spokesperson for prime minister Rishi Sunak reiterated that it seemed to be a technical fault that had affected the Nats system and not a cyber-attack.
Rumours have also circulated that an inputting error by a French airline could have sparked the system failure.
“There’s going to be an investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority and a report shared with government […] in days,” the spokesperson added.
“It’s not acceptable that UK Nats simply allow their computer systems to be taken down, and everybody’s flights get cancelled or delayed,” Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said in a video posted on social media.
Michael O'Leary, CEO of the Ryanair Group gives an update on delays/cancellations due to UK ATC failure on Aug 28 pic.twitter.com/HoebuSNqBy
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) August 29, 2023
According to O'Leary, the budget Irish carrier is among those having to cancel further flights on Tuesday, with misplaced planes and out-of-hours crews adding to issues.