Radar crashed

[John Pruden]

all aircraft grounded today nothing going out?

[j.sabourn]

What about all them tourists coming to Oz to spend their money. The tourist board will already be working this into their figures for the annual budget as an excuse for the expected and usual poor results. Cheers John Sabourn

[robpage]

Flights at airports across the UK - including Heathrow and Gatwick - have been delayed or cancelled by an air traffic control system problem.Thousands of passengers have seen their flights delayed by a "technical problem" at southern England's main air traffic control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire.Airports in the south east of England - the world's busiest airspace - have been hardest hit, with the knock-on impact disrupting flights across the UK and further afield.Passengers have complained about a lack of information as they spend hours stuck on planes, waiting to find out if their flights will take off.Eurocontrol, which coordinates air traffic control across Europe, has said the technical problem will not be fixed until 4pm at the earliest.Gatwick Airport tweeted: "Due to air traffic control systems issues some flights may be delayed. Please check with your airline."A Heathrow Airport spokeswoman said: "We are currently experiencing some delays."There are also reports of delays at Stansted, Manchester, Cardiff, Southampton, Luton, London City and flights to the south from Edinburgh and Glasgow.NATS air traffic control said in a statement: "Due to a technical problem at Swanwick we are currently experiencing some difficulty switching from night-time to daytime operation.The problems stem from a technical issue at NATS air traffic control"At night, when it's quiet, we can combine sectors of airspace. When it gets busy in the daytime we split the sectors out again. The voice communications system is configured to enable this to happen."We experienced a technical problem in the early hours of this morning, which means that it hasn't been possible to reconfigure the voice communications system to split out the sectors for the busier daytime traffic in some areas of the UK en route airspace."Engineers are working to rectify the problem as soon as possible, but this is resulting in some delays. Safety has not been compromised at any time, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience being caused to passengers."The issue has also affected flights UK-bound flights from Ireland and Europe.Dublin Airport tweeted: "Technical issue with air traffic control in southern England is causing a delay to some flights to England & continental Europe this AM

."Daisy McAndrew said she had been caught in the "unholy mess" at Gatwick as she tried to fly to Barcelona for work.She told Sky News: "As ever, staff have been fantastic but they know nothing other than the fact it is going to be a very, very long delay - very frustrating."And also, it's embarrassing, isn't it? When you look around a lot of people on my plane are not British, they are flying British Airways, they are probably trying to get back to Spain and they will inevitably be thinking this is something that could have possibly been prevented ."It doesn't show our air traffic control system or our travel system in a good light."I have never heard of an example where every single plane is grounded - it's quite eerie when I look out of the window to see the tarmac in Gatwick, normally so busy, and also the sky above Gatwick which is normally busy - completely static, there's nothing moving."Mrs McAndrew said the pilot on her flight suggested the delays would cause problems at Heathrow for two or three days.


See even the Airlines blame the Engineers !!!

[Captain Kong]

I like Daisy Macandrew,

[ray-c]

I was at a meeting there, while it was being constructed, and voiced my opinion, that
putting all the eggs in one basket, would come back and bite your bum, they scoffed at
the comment, so he he he I was right, it was a pure H & S comment.

[Stan Carter]

in that case i think i will stay home today and watch football on the box.
stan