Air traffic failure was avoidable, says Transport Secretary

The UK's air traffic control system was the cause of widespread flight chaos due to a technical failure that has caused over 2,000 flights to be cancelled.

A glitch in Nats' flight processing system resulted in the disruption, with around 90 minutes of flight cancellations occurring before it was resolved.

Heidi Alexander told the Commons she had ordered an independent investigation into the issue, which will be led by the aviation watchdog and presented to the government within six months' time.

Nats has apologised for its third major technical fault in three years, with airlines such as Wizz Air and Ryanair calling for the boss of Nats to step down due to his handling of the situation.

The glitch occurred at Nats' Swanwick Centre in Hampshire, where one of its two air traffic control centres are. The other is in Prestwick, Ayrshire.

The system issue was identified by around 90 minutes after it first emerged and was resolved by 19:30 BST on Tuesday.

By Wednesday evening, the number of flights that had been cancelled or failed to take off since the fault first emerged had grown to more than 2,000, according to flight analytics firm Cirium.

Nats has stated it will cooperate fully with any investigation into the incident and is committed to ensuring the resilience of its systems in the future.

Heidi Alexander also acknowledged that there were 'tough questions' about accountability for the incident and the need for consumer redress issues to be addressed.