Flights affected by the disruption due to last Friday's computer system failure has started getting back to normal since Saturday, Dec. 13. A total of 83 flights out of 1,300 were cancelled at London Heathrow airport due to the incident.
According to reports, the disruption was brought about by a technical problem at Swanwick Center's flight data system, which affected takeoff and landing schedules.
Flights were delayed, cancelled, and rerouted last Friday at London Heathrow airport. National Air Traffic Services (NATS) had experienced a glitch in the system, making the holiday rush more unbearable for passengers.
"Although operational restrictions applied during the failure have been lifted, it will take time for flight operations across the UK to fully recover so passengers should contact their airline for the status of their flight," NATS said in a statement.
Authorities had to resort to limiting flights at one of the world's busiest airports to be able to manage the situation. The glitch affected Gatwick and Heathrow airports, and also affected flights in Ireland, Scotland, Continental Europe, and even the United States.
The exact cause of the glitch was not disclosed. According to NATS, it was not caused by a power outage. Reports circulated that there was a problem with the landing and take-off software that Heathrow was using.
Many passengers were quite disappointed about the incident. In an interview, one passenger shared his dismay over the incident saying they had to stand in line for almost three hours without getting a word from airport management about what was causing flight cancellations and delays.
London Heathrow was Europe's busiest airport in 2011, and currently serves at least 72 million passengers annually, while Gatwick serves over 30 million travelers every year. Heathrow opened its newly renovated terminal 2 in June to better serve its passengers.
Other areas that were affected by the disruption were Gatwick (19 cancellations), London City (delays and cancellations), Stansted (delays), Luton (residual delays), Newcastle (some delays), Edinburgh (some delays), Southampton (some delays), Glasgow (some delays), Bristol (delays, no cancellations), Birmingham (delays, re-routed flights), Leeds Bradford (suspensions), Manchester (some delays), East Midlands (delays
