‘It will take a long time’ for flights to return to normal, says Nats chief as she apologises for travel chaos

The UK air traffic control failure will be investigated “very thoroughly” after hundreds of flights were estimated to have been cancelled at the end of the bank holiday weekend.

Juliet Kennedy, operations director at National Air Traffic Services (Nats), the country’s leading provider of air traffic control, said in a statement that “it will take a long time” for flights to return to normal.

Holidaymakers were hit by travel delays as a result of the UK air traffic control failure.

Nats said at 3.15pm on Monday 28 August that it had “identified and remedied” the technical issue affecting its systems.