Flights cancelled at UK airports due to ATC issue

NATS - the same system that crashed in August 2023 [1] due to an id clash, causing 2000 flights to be cancelled and days of chaos.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37461695

Currently stuck at an airport in london. It's insane how little information the staff here has. Also mindboggling that in aviation, where everything has a backup or two there seems to be a single company with a single software that can take down an entire airspace which most like will create worldwide ripple for the next days.

For anyone stranded, read up on UK261/EU261 and your airlines application process to be reimbursed. As far as I’m aware it’s not likely to happen automatically, you need to initiate the process (and record audio/video just in case proof is needed)

Just had to cancel my 10-year passport renewal appointment for tomorrow morning, since it's in London and I'm in the EU. Man, this was a *miserable* way to spend a day. The flight kept getting bumped, heading for certain cancellation (it came, about midnight, long after I had returned from the airport); GPT was incredibly helpful on how to redeem (most of) the shit-ton of money I had paid for a 4-hour passport renewal appointment, and what my rights and obligations were in this situation.

In particular it pointed me to authority docs declaring that if a flight is 5+ hours late, you can refuse to fly, reclaim the money and exit the airport. So when the next update said that the flight had been bumped 9 hours, I had all I needed to secure that and went home. Two hours later, the app announced the flight was cancelled.

Sometimes (really a lot) I want to kick GPT's/Claude's/Gemini's collective rear ends. And then there are times like these, when, with me in a funk, AI cuts straight through to the essential knowledge I need and lowers the temperature.

This affected flights going to the UK as well.

Source: Me, stuck in an airport, having witnessed numerous flights destined to London canceled throughout the day.

Uh oh. For those of us with a connection through Heathrow morning of the 10th (in about 36 hours) what would you recommend?

IT sector in the UK is bargain basement. Most competent people left for countries where their talents are valued or retired.

"I told it not to deploy until it was fixed."

This brings up the ol' ATC government ran vs privatization debate

Including mine. I'm not angry because my flight was cancelled. It's a pain in the arse but what really infuriates me is the "We are terribly sorry" these PR releases give. I've been on hold for three hours with British Airlines and it's "we are sorry", no you're not.

"We are truly sorry for the ongoing flight disruption" is what infuriates the situation; when words have no meaning behind the phase. Pixelated hold-music I am sure is designed to make you rage further.

In the middle of a highly geopolitically sensitive moment where there's been bombs at other European airports recently?

Color me suspicious.

happen after every few years

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Better for the planet though.

Got me confused with that title, thinking what “100 seconds of flights” would look like.

Wonder if any of this code was outsourced to India 'cut costs'