Flight disruption eases as airport operations return to normal

The chaos caused by a technical issue at National Air Traffic Services (Nats) that resulted in over 2,000 flight cancellations has subsided, with operations expected to return to normal. Heathrow, London Stansted, Manchester, and Gatwick all indicated Thursday's flights would proceed as usual. British Airways, which had canceled nearly 550 flights affecting more than 85,000 passengers, expects to resume a normal schedule.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander apologized to affected passengers and stated that she does not believe the outage was inevitable. Nats has taken responsibility for the incident and said a full investigation will be conducted. The Civil Aviation Authority considers the disruption caused by the Nats outage as 'extraordinary circumstances' under passenger rights rules, so passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation.