Flights resume at Edinburgh Airport after air traffic control outage

Passengers are experiencing delays and cancellations after an air traffic control outage led to the suspension of flights to and from Edinburgh Airport.

Services resumed at 10:40 after flights were grounded for about two hours, with some passengers reporting being stuck in planes on the runway.

There have since been knock-on delays, diversions and cancellations to flights in and out of the airport.

Edinburgh Airport said the problem had been caused by an IT issue with its air traffic control provider ANS, and thanked passengers for their “patience and understanding”.

ANS has been apprroached for comment.

Seven flights from Edinburgh have been cancelled – to Paris, Bristol, Belfast, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Luton and Belfast City.

A further 11 planes were diverted from landing in Edinburgh and 15 flights have been delayed.

The airport said the situation was “fluid” and further disruption was still possible.

Passengers were asked to contact their airlines for the latest information on their flights.

Margot and Iver Morton from Dundee said they were facing a 10-hour wait in the airport after their flight was cancelled.

The couple, who are travelling to London to deliver Christmas presents to their teenage grandchildren, were able to book onto a later flight to Gatwick.

Iver said: “It was most unexpected. We’ve been left to fend for ourselves and it’s not been an easy process.

“It took us half an hour to get re-booked on to another flight. It’s not been the best of days.

“Our original flight was at 10:25 and our new flight takes off at 21:00. We’re trying to amuse ourselves for the next 10 hours.”

Felicity, from Swindon, said she was “gutted” as the delays meant she would now miss her youngest child’s last nativity play.

She had travelled to Edinburgh for a work meeting and said she had been waiting for an hour and a half, with many on the plane having missed connections.

Rory Boland, the editor of Which? Travel, said the airline was responsible for getting diverted passengers to their original destination and should cover those costs.

“Contact the airline in the first instance but you can claim for onward travel if this proves impossible,” he said.

However, he said passengers were unlikely to be owed compensation for delays or cancellations caused by a technical issue of this kind.

Edinburgh Airport is one of the busiest in the UK, being used by 15.8 million passengers last year.