Mumbai: The air traffic control disruption at London Heathrow that caused widespread cancellations and diversions on Tuesday continued to affect London-bound passengers from India on Wednesday, with seven of the total 24 scheduled flights from Indian cities to London cancelled for the day.
IndiGo cancelled its lone Wednesday departure to London from Mumbai, British Airways cancelled three out of its nine India flights, while Virgin Atlantic cancelled one out of its five India flights, according to data shared by Cirium. Air India did not cancel any of its eight flights from India to London.
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Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora , who was travelling on the flight, said passengers spent 18 hours at Schiphol and were unable to retrieve their luggage. The IndiGo flight from Amsterdam to London was rescheduled to depart on Wednesday at 4.15 pm (local time), but with the aircraft in Amsterdam, the Wednesday Mumbai-London flight was cancelled. Air India’s AI 131 operating from Mumbai to London on Tuesday was diverted to Zurich. The aircraft landed in Switzerland and its nearly 290 passengers were subsequently deboarded after the onward journey to London was cancelled. “More than 1,700 flight movements were impacted, which included 903 departures and 843 arrivals. Out of the 5,800 flights scheduled over 30% were cancelled,” said Cirium about Tuesday’s disruption. On Wednesday, by 5 pm, 291 flights to or from London were cancelled, which was around 5% of the 5,869 flights scheduled. On a normal day, 1% of flights are cancelled.
The failure caused widespread disruption at Heathrow and other UK airports, with aircraft unable to depart as planned and arriving flights diverted to airports across Europe. The impact was felt by Mumbai passengers. A Dutch transport strike also ruled out travel by train to London, he posted on X. The disruption was substantial across Heathrow.
The disruption followed a technical failure in the flight-processing system of Britain’s air traffic control provider NATS on Tuesday. IndiGo’s Mumbai-London flight on Tuesday was diverted to Amsterdam, where passengers deboarded. Heathrow said on Wednesday that flights were operating but warned that some knock-on disruption would continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crew.