Travel warning issued to Brits after US grounded all planes in 'extraordinary circumstances' sparking chaos
Travellers in the UK have been warned to prepare for disruption in their own journeys after flights across the US were grounded.
Across the pond all flights were halted for several hours 'due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety' after air traffic control centres suffered from communications issues.
As a consequence flights to the US from the UK were also grounded, and various airlines have provided guidance on what passengers should do.
British Airways told passengers hoping to fly to the US 'travel to the airport as planned so we can try to depart our aircraft as quickly as possible', while a Virgin Atlantic spokesperson told prospective passengers to 'check their flight status' before travelling.
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That's the advice the Department for Transport is giving is well, as they've recommended those planning to fly to the US should check things before they make their journey.
The communications issue which forced US planes to be grounded for several hours hasn't affected the UK, so the disruption to passengers will come in the form of transatlantic planes which haven't arrived yet because of delays or holdups based on a backlog to clear.
A spokesperson for Irish airline Aer Lingus said the flights they had en route to the US had permission to land, but those due to depart would be on hold for a while.
Manchester Airport have said they're not expecting 'significant' delays as a consequence, noting that they had three scheduled flights to the US which would experience slight delays but still go ahead as planned.
Meanwhile, a Virgin Atlantic plane from Heathrow to New York that had been scheduled to leave yesterday (13 November) was cancelled.
US officials have said that it 'doesn't appear' as though a cyber attack or rogue AI was part of the disruption, instead saying that their air traffic control system was 'overwhelmed' by the introduction of some new technology.
He said: "We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage. We did.
"We were able to review what went wrong, and then reboot the system and go. But, you will have more of these."
They've said a 'complete overhaul' of their air traffic control systems is needed, and that while the new technology has had some teething problems there'd be more if they stayed on the old systems.
To give you an idea of the age of some of the technology US air traffic control is using, the Federal Aviation Administration has declared that by 2028 it will finally replace critical information being stored on floppy disks from the 1980s in over 400 sites.
They're pricing the cost of the overhaul at around $50 billion (£37.8 billion) to phase out the floppy disks, which aren't thought to be at fault for the latest disruption.
Only twice since the 9/11 attacks have flights been grounded across the US, this latest disruption is one of those times with the other coming in January 2023 due to a system error.
Joe Harker
