Flights from London airports delayed due to 'technical problems'

Flights from several London airports are suffering delays today following technical problems at an air traffic control centre.

Thousands of travellers have been left stranded at Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow and London City airports.

Services at Stansted are subject to delays of between 30 minutes and three hours while about a fifth of departures at Gatwick have been delayed.

An estimated 50 per cent of flights from London City Airport are also being disrupted and Heathrow said it had cancelled 60 flights and others were subject to delays.

The National Air Traffic Service (Nats) said the issue was unlikely to be fixed until between 6.30pm and 7pm.

It said the disruption had stemmed from problems with an internal telephone system at its control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire.

A spokesman said: "Engineers are working to rectify the problem as soon as possible."

Many passengers took to Twitter to express their frustration at the delays.

Paralympic sailor Helena Lucas wrote: "Lots of angry people at Heathrow! Customer services is crowded with unhappy people! My flight looks on time fingers crossed!"

Take That singer Howard Donald, who was due to catch a flight back to London from Düsseldorf, was also caught up in the chaos.

He tweeted: "Control tower failure at Heathrow as left me stranded for 2-3 hours at Dusseldorf. Anyone know any games besides eye spy?"

 

Passengers are being advised to check with their airline for the latest situation.