India-UK flights hit as UK air traffic control outage causes mass cancellations, diversions

NEW DELHI: Flights between India and the UK are among the more than 1,000 flights cancelled or diverted following a breakdown in air traffic control services in the UK. Flights operated by Air India, IndiGo and British Airways between India and the UK are among those affected.

Although the issue has now been resolved, the disruption is expected to continue affecting hundreds of flights due to the knock-on impact.

Air India flight AI 2107 from Delhi to London Heathrow has been diverted to Paris airport.

Passenger Mohammad Irfan Khan posted on X: "At Paris airport no individual from Airindia near passenger, no water , no food , no update on next step. People travelling with infants and kids."

AI 131 from Mumbai to London was diverted to Zurich last night. The flight carrying nearly 300 passengers on board was cancelled later and all passengers deboarded at Zurich.

In a statement, Air India said, "Flights operating to and from airports in the United Kingdom have been impacted by a technical fault at NATS, the UK air traffic control provider. As a result, Air India has been forced to divert, delay or cancel multiple flights scheduled to operate to and from UK airports. This may lead to delays in some of our other services, too, as our aircraft and crews are out of position following the disruption."

It asked passengers to check the latest status of their flights here airindia.com/in/en/manage/f… before proceeding to the airport.

"We are closely monitoring the situation and are making every effort to minimise disruptions as much as possible," it added.

The service provider NATS has restored the services but resumption of normal flight services is expected to take long due to the backlog that needs to be cleared, say reports emanating from Europe.

IndiGo claimed not to have details of its impacted flights and said it would get back.

British Airways say it had been forced to divert or cancel more than 100 flights. It added that the scale of the disruption would have a significant knock on impact, adding that it had left aircraft and crew in the wrong locations.