Image source, EPA

Thousands more passengers have been affected by knock-on disruption the day after an air traffic control issue saw most flights grounded across the UK.

The latest figures from aviation analytics firm Cirium show that more than 350 scheduled flights have been cancelled or did not fly on Wednesday.

The cause of the problem

• The widespread disruption was caused by a technical fault at the headquarters of Nats, the UK's air traffic control provider, with an investigation into the matter launched by the Civil Aviation Authority
• Speaking in the Commons today, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander ruled out a cyber attack but said she does not believe the issue was "unavoidable"

Stranded passengers

• One couple said they felt they have spent their honeymoon at Gatwick after spending hours in Wetherspoons instead of on their cancelled flight to Madeira
• A woman stranded in Cyprus said her experience, including long waits and little communication, has been a "nightmare"
• Another family spent the night on the floor of a hotel conference centre in Rhodes, Greece, where staff "stripped all the cushions off the sunbeds"

Industry response

• Regulator the Civil Aviation Authority says passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation
• Airlines UK, a trade body for UK airlines, has written to the transport secretary telling her this "cannot happen again"
• British Airways says it was forced to cancel 198 flights on Wednesday, apologising to passengers despite saying the issue was "completely outside of our control"

Nats says the issue that caused the chaos is now fixed, but disruption is likely to carry on for a few days yet, writes BBC transport correspondent Katy Austin.

We're ending our live coverage for now, but you can read more in our online article. And you can also read more stories from people who've been affected by the disruption

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Our correspondent explained earlier what your rights are if your flight is cancelled:

If your flight is cancelled, your airline is still obliged to get you to your destination, even if it is on another carrier, or give you a refund.

For delays, you may have the right to food, or a hotel stay, depending on the length of the wait.

When delays and cancellations are the fault of an airline, then passengers may be entitled to extra compensation.

But, clearly, air traffic control issues are beyond the control of airlines, so no extra payments will be made.

Experts are urging passengers to check the advice from your airport, tour operator, and airline apps on a regular basis.

• Read more on what your rights are in this explainer

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) - which has been charged with carrying out an independent review of the disruption caused this week - says passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation.

In an updated statement this evening, a spokesperson says it has reminded airlines of their responsibilities to look after passengers whose flights have been delayed or cancelled.

But under passenger rights rules, it says the disruption caused by the Nats issue is "likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’".

It adds: "This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident."

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

British Airways says it is operating almost 80% of its flight schedule today.

In a statement published on X, the airline says teams are "continuing to work through the impact" of Tuesday's issue.

They say that "thanks to the hard work" of staff "we are operating almost 80% of our schedule today".

Flights continue to experience disruption at some UK airports this evening, but many airlines have started to resume normal operations.

Here's a look at some of the flights that are displayed as having departed, as of 17:30 BST on Wednesday.

Manchester Airport

• 15:50 FR2242 Ryanair flight to Bologna
• 15:55 EZY2011 easyJet flight to Tenerife
• 16:30 LS1727 Jet2 flight to Antalya

Heathrow Airport

• 16:20 DL004 Delta Airlines to New York City
• 16:40 UA925 British Airways flight to Washington DC
• 16:50 EI169 Aer Lingus flight to Dublin

Edinburgh Airport

• 16:10 EZY3223 easyJet flight to Herkalion
• 17:24 EZY3209 easyJet flight to Madrid
• 17:23 H2525 Lufthansa flight to Munich

Other flights from Heathrow Airport to locations including New York, Hong Kong and Beijing have been cancelled, while others to Valencia, Amsterdam and Dublin are marked as delayed.

Image source, David Lloyd

We've been hearing from you - some of the hundreds of thousands of people thought to have been affected by flight cancellations to and from the UK. Here's a snippet from around the world:

Clevedon residents David Lloyd and his wife Sarah are currently preparing for a flight to London from Vanta Airport, Helsinki, tomorrow evening - around two days after they were told their original flight was cancelled, just as they got to the gate.

Meanwhile, Addie Kitson, from London, had to board a diverted flight from Chengdu, China, to Stockholm, Sweden, last night, after which she had to wait for a second flight for 17 hours.

Cate Allen and her husband hoped to travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia, for their first holiday in two years. They told BBC Your Voice that they had been "saving tirelessly for this trip" and have now lost over £1.5k as their flight was cancelled after a five hour wait.

Alice Goodall was due to fly to Antalya, Turkey, with her partner yesterday when her flight was cancelled around 18:00. She described the scenes in the airport as a "complete free for all".

"It was so busy that when someone was getting a suitcase, they’d grab it and fall over into the crowd and people were getting hurt. It was completely ridiculous."

And Chloe Smith from Derbyshire is now trying to re-organise her trip to Los Angeles, US, with her partner which was "planned down to the minute" after her flight yesterday was cancelled.

Andree Massiah
BBC Your Voice

Image source, Tom MacColl

Tom MacColl from London told the BBC that he and his fiancée Isa Brookes have been trying to get to Madrid since Tuesday for their wedding on Friday.

MacColl and his fiancée were due to fly out from Heathrow to Madrid yesterday, they boarded at 12:15, taxied on the runway and were later told by the captain that flights were grounded.

"We were then on the plane for nine hours on the tarmac," he tells the BBC.

Since then, MacColl says they've had no contact from the airline about booking them onto an onward flight and their baggage "never made it back in the terminal, so it is somewhere in Heathrow".

The couple couldn't risk any further delays, so they got the Eurostar to Paris this morning and are hoping to catch a flight from Paris to Madrid tonight. MacColl says all replacement trips have been organised by them, with no help from their airline.

"We have to make it to our wedding on Friday," he adds.

Sofia Ferreira Santos
Reporting from Heathrow Airport

Image source, Getty Images

Heathrow feels much calmer today than it did yesterday, despite a number of flights still being cancelled.

I was here for around four hours last night before my flight to Brazil was finally cancelled - and a few more hours afterwards trying to sort out the next steps. Yesterday the general feeling was of distress and sadness, understandably.

A lot of people on the flight, like me, only get to visit our loved ones back home once every couple of years so this time is particularly precious to us.

Others had been visiting the UK and had to sort out last minute accommodation or spend the night at the airport.

There was a slight panic today as our flight is actually showing up as cancelled on the departure boards, but staff here are reassuring us that it’s just a glitch in the system.

Usually the self check-in and bag drops are available but this is not the case today, forcing everyone to join yet another queue. I’ve been waiting about an hour and a half to drop my bags off and head to security, but at least once that happens it will take me further into the airport than I was able to get to yesterday.

People are generally in good spirits, though I think we are all holding out until that plane takes off to finally take a deep breath.

The trade body for airlines in the UK says it has written to the transport secretary to express "serious concerns" over Tuesday's technical failure with Nats, the UK's air traffic control provider.

Tim Alderslade, CEO of Airlines UK, writes in the letter that this is the "third major system failure at Nats in three years", following incidents in 2023 and 2025.

He says "significantly in excess of 1,000" flights have been cancelled, with the same amount again delayed, impacting an estimated 330,000-plus passengers.

Alderslade says airlines are being left to "absorb the immediate costs of disruption" despite having "no operational control over this failure".

"This kind of failure simply cannot happen again," he writes.

The Labour MP for Bournemouth East, Tom Hayes, has called for the chief executive of Nats, Martin Rolfe to resign.

Rolfe apologised to hundreds of thousands of passengers who were left stranded or had travel plans disrupted after the an issue with Nats' flight processing system led to over 1,000 cancelled flights.

Hayes told the BBC's Politics Live on Wednesday that this is "yet another incidence of Nats failing" and, asked what he thinks should happen, Hayes replied: "I think he should resign."

Image source, House of Commons

Alexander continues to say that she does not believe that "this issue was unavoidable" and says she is "clear" that passengers should not have to face this disruption.

She says she has asked the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) to conduct an independent review "to establish cause and ensure that our air traffic systems can get passengers to where they need to be", which will report back to her within six months.

She adds: "It is still true to say that few industries match aviation's ability to adapt, evolve and innovate."

She adds: "Bad days like yesterday just serve to underscore how central aviation is to Britain's success."

We're hearing some comments from Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, in the wake of Tuesday's air traffic control disruption.

Speaking in the House of Commons, she says a four hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions and delays.

"I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption," she says.

Alexander says safety must remain the overarching priority. She says she spoke to Nats' chief executive Martin Rolfe who said the outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site in Hampshire.

Ben Sturt
Business reporter

Image source, Rebecca Barrows

Two colleagues decided to “not risk flying” after their flight from Geneva to Heathrow was cancelled.

Rebecca Barrows and her colleague were told at 08:00 this morning that their evening flight with British Airways had been cancelled.

They were offered a flight on Friday morning (11 September) but the pair opted to travel by rail instead.

“We are currently taking a six-and-a-half hour train to Paris with four changes, staying overnight there, and taking the Eurostar [to London] tomorrow morning,” she says.

“We have to get back to work and my colleague has a concert tomorrow night, so the Friday flight would have caused him to miss it".

Barrows says that after working long hours for two days at an event, hearing they could not get back tonight was "not the best news, but sometimes you just have to roll with it".

She says the hardest part of the journey was deciding on an alternative route that would avoid flying, and still allow them to work.

We've just has another update from aviation analytics company Cirium, which says 347 flights have been cancelled or did not fly on Wednesday.

Some 150 of those were departures, and 197 arrivals. That's 5.9% of scheduled flights.

We can now bring you some more from those comments from the prime minister's spokesman earlier this afternoon.

The prime minister's spokesman says that Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has raised "significant concerns" to Nats boss Martin Rolfe.

Alexander asked Rolfe to carry out a "full investigation into what happened", with a deadline to report back is in a week's time, the spokesman told reporters on Wednesday.

As we have already reported, the No 10 have said the government has confidence in Rolfe.

The spokesman says of Alexander: "I think it’s self-evident that she wants answers and the full investigation to be reported back in a week’s time, and she’s got confidence in him to deliver that."

Pressed on whether this meant the confidence was conditional on the investigation outcome, the spokesman says: "We have confidence in him and he’s been tasked with the investigation, which will report in a week’s time."

Katy Austin
Transport correspondent, reporting from Heathrow

At Heathrow today, on the surface things look normal. Terminals are bustling with passengers checking in and dropping bags.

Many flights appear to be operating as usual, but departure boards still show some cancellations, as airlines grapple with the knock-on impact of yesterday’s air traffic control problems.

Some passengers we spoke to were arriving to catch alternative flights after theirs had been cancelled yesterday evening.

They’d found it hard to find any space left at local hotel rooms to stay the night, so ended up going into central London to avoid sleeping on the airport floor.

Image source, EPA

Rowenna Hoskin
BBC Wales

Image source, Sukie Perera

A woman who's stuck in Turkey after a cancelled flight has described the experience a "nightmare".

Sukie Perera, from Cardiff, says her Easyjet flight on Tuesday was initially delayed for two hours before being fully cancelled, adding "you are literally in the hands of the gods then".

"Not going to lie, the communication was quite poor," she says.

After arriving at the airport, Perera says that she and fellow passengers had to wait two hours before they were driven an hour an 40 minutes away from the airport for overnight accommodation.

"It has been a nightmare," she says, but jokes that at least "the view is beautiful".

She says Easyjet has now told her she will be able to fly home on Thursday, two days later than planned, but that she will have to make her own way home to Cardiff from Luton airport.

Image source, EPA

It's been a continuation of Tuesday's chaos for many passengers today as airlines grapple with the disruption caused by hundreds of cancelled flights.

Here are they key points from today:

• More than 300 flights have been cancelled or not flown on Wednesday, according to Aviation analytics firm Cirium
• British Airways has confirmed that it alone has cancelled 198 of its flights scheduled for Wednesday due to disruption caused by its 349 cancellations on Tuesday
• The disruption could last for days, writes BBC transport correspondent Katy Austin, as Tuesday's cancellations mean crews and planes will be stuck in the wrong position
• Stranded passengers have told the BBC of frayed tempers, nights sleeping on the floor and spending their "honeymoon at Gatwick"

Aviation analytics company Cirium says more than 2,000 flights have been affected since Tuesday.

In its latest update, the company says 30.1% of flights across UK airports were cancelled or did not fly on Tuesday.

The figure is much lower so far today, at 5.57%.

Katy Austin
Transport correspondent

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) says operations are "stable" and they will continue to work with airlines to support their recovery from the ongoing disruption.

"We would also like to reiterate our apology to all those affected – passengers, airlines and airports – by our system issue yesterday," it says in a statement.

Nats adds that the immediate focus is safely managing today's flights, but "a full investigation will be conducted to establish what happened and identify any further action needed".