Massive disruption hits UK airports after air traffic control issue

By Rhea Mogul, CNN

(CNN) — Major disruption was expected to continue at British airports on Wednesday – including Heathrow, one of Europe’s busiest hubs – after an hours-long air traffic control outage triggered widespread delays and cancellations.

Earlier in the day, departure boards at London airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted showed dozens of flights delayed or canceled. Other airports, including Manchester, also reported disruption.

The issue has caused more than 200 flight cancellations across the UK, according to aircraft tracker Flightradar24. Budget airline Ryanair said 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted by the issue and that it had canceled more than 50 scheduled flights.

Heathrow and Gatwick told CNN that flights departing from their airports were impacted by the air traffic control issue.

Departures have since resumed at Heathrow, but arrivals remain canceled, according to a statement from the airport on Tuesday. “Disruption is expected to continue,” it added.

The company that runs the affected system said on Tuesday that the issue had been fixed, but delays at airports remain ongoing.

The recovery from the issue “has taken longer than we had hoped,” NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services, said in a statement.

“We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly,” NATS said, adding it is now operating normally and working to clear the backlog of flights.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Issy Ronald, Caitlin Danahar, Rob North and Billy Stockwell contributed to this report.