Flights from Heathrow to the United States were cancelled on Saturday morning after aviation authorities in America halted every flight in the country for several hours the day before.
Three American Airlines services out of Heathrow were showing as cancelled: the 9.55am departure to Charlotte in North Carolina, the 11.50am flight to Dallas, Texas, and the 11.55am service to Los Angeles, California.
By Saturday morning, only some delays and cancellations remained on UK departures operated by American carriers, after a day of chaos that brought air travel across the United States to a standstill.
British Airways, which had earlier apologised for possible delays and cancellations, said its services were now operating as normal.
A spokesperson for the airline said: “Whilst this matter was entirely outside of our control, we want to thank our customers for bearing with us, and our colleagues for supporting them and helping to minimise any disruption.”
The disruption began on Friday when the US Federal Aviation Administration halted all flights nationwide for several hours, citing what it described as “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety”.
It is only the second time since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks that flights have been grounded across the whole of the United States.
The previous incident came in January 2023, when a failure in the system that sends safety notices to pilots forced departing flights to be held on the ground for around 90 minutes, delaying thousands of services across the country.
US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin said the latest outage was caused by the introduction of new technology into an ageing air traffic control system.
Mr Mullin said it “doesn’t appear” that a cyber attack or rogue artificial intelligence played any role in the incident.
US transportation secretary Sean Duffy warned that similar incidents could happen again in the future, as the country’s air traffic control network continues to rely on decades-old equipment.
The knock-on effects reached well beyond American airports. Manchester Airport said no significant delays were expected there today, while the situation was understood to have had only a minimal impact on London Gatwick.
Ireland’s Department of Transport advised all US-bound passengers to check with their airline for the latest updates before travelling.
Heathrow is one of the busiest gateways between Britain and the United States, with American Airlines operating its transatlantic services from Terminal 3 and British Airways flying from Terminal 5.
Passengers due to fly to the US today are being urged to check the status of their flight with their airline before setting off for the airport, as schedules continue to settle after Friday’s ground stop.
Airlines are required to offer passengers on cancelled flights a choice between re-routing to their destination at the earliest opportunity or a full refund, and travellers are advised to keep boarding passes and receipts for any expenses incurred while they wait.
With the cause of the outage still under investigation in Washington, and the US transportation secretary warning it could happen again, airlines on both sides of the Atlantic will be watching closely for any repeat of Friday’s shutdown.
