Thousands of passengers have been hit by the latest round of disruption at Birmingham airport – this time involving air traffic control.
The West Midlands hub saw dozens of diversions, cancellations and delays last Thursday night and Friday morning when the runway closed due to heavy snow.
On Sunday night arrivals were halted at Birmingham airport due to an air traffic control radar failure – believed to be caused by a fire at a National Grid location.
The last flight in on Sunday, Jet2 from Faro, landed at 8.42pm. Subsequent arrivals all diverted to a range of airports or turned back to their starting points.
Liverpool John Lennon airport received three diversions: Jet2 from Gran Canaria, plus Ryanair from Dublin and Murcia.
East Midlands airport took easyJet from Marrakech, Ryanair from Malaga and Tui from Tenerife.
Other aircraft went to Bristol, Manchester or Stansted. The affected planes flew on to Birmingham in the early hours of Monday morning.
The first flight in after the shutdown was Ryanair from Tenerife. It held over Bristol airport for 20 minutes but was able to land at 12.32am.
Air France’s evening departure from Paris CDG was almost at the Channel coast when news of the failure came through. It flew in a holding pattern before returning to the French hub.
The KLM evening flight from Amsterdam reached north London before the pilots decided to return to Schiphol airport.
Lufthansa’s service from Frankfurt remained on the ground at the German airport.
The three corresponding outbound flights on Monday morning, to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris CDG, have been cancelled as a result.
Under air passengers’ rights rules, travellers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to be flown to their destination as soon as possible on any airline, and to be provided with meals and hotels until they get there. But the arriving travellers will not get compensation, even though many of them were over three hours late.
The Independent has asked Birmingham airport, National Grid and the air traffic control provider, Nats, to comment.
In March 2021, Heathrow airport closed almost completely for a day after a fire at an electricity substation supplying the hub.
