More Than 500 Flights Canceled After Hours-Long ‘Network-Wide Failure’ Hits British Air Traffic Control

European airports faced chaos Monday following an hours-long “network-wide failure” that hit Britain’s air traffic control system, triggering the cancellation of more than 500 flights. 

By the time the issue was fixed, thousands of passengers were reported to be stranded in airport terminals in the U.K. and across Europe.

“We have identified and remedied the technical issue affecting our flight planning system this morning,” the U.K. National Air Traffic Services authority said Monday afternoon local time, several hours after the fault first came to light.

Earlier, budget carrier EasyJet and the Scottish airline Loganair both warned passengers to expect delays, BBC reported. 

“There has been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems this morning,” Loganair said on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

“Although we are hopeful of being able to operate most intra-Scotland flights on the basis of local coordination and with a minimum of disruption, north-south and international flights may be subject to delays.”

With the fault affecting flights flying to and from the U.K., delays piled up across Europe.

“After almost 3 weeks away from home I am hours from hugging my family. And have just been told UK airspace is shut. We could be here for 12 hours,” British broadcaster Gabby Logan said on social media from a runway at Budapest airport as engineers raced to fix the issue on Monday morning.

An EasyJet passenger complained, “Now stranded in Amsterdam as my flight home is delayed by 10 hours!!! Will we get compensation? No because they will blame air traffic control.”

Travel journalist Simon Calder told BBC that Monday was one of the busiest days of the year for British airports, as holidaymakers return from long weekend trips abroad. London Gatwick Airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world.