On January 6, 2022, flights were affected at London Gatwick Airport (LGW), one of the UK’s busiest airports, due to an IT malfunction at the Air Traffic Control tower.
During the troubles, three planes were diverted, although they were rectified pretty quickly during the morning arrivals time. Other flights were forced to wait near the airport while the issue was resolved.
“Earlier IT issues in the Air Traffic Control tower this morning have been resolved and flights are arriving and departing the airport as normal,” Gatwick Airport said via social media.
Earlier IT issues in the Air Traffic Control tower this morning have been resolved and flights are arriving and departing the airport as normal.
Some flights may still experience delays and we advise you to check the status of your flight with your airline. https://t.co/YU90yEER2i
— Gatwick Airport LGW (@Gatwick_Airport) January 6, 2022
It did warn, however, that passengers may still face delays as a result of the earlier outage, which caused delays for both arriving and departing planes.
The LGW tower had to shut down a difficult IT system at 7:25 local time (7:25 UTC), according to the Guardian, with the system restoring to normal at 9:10 local time.
When compared to the major computer breakdown that plagued British Airways in May 2017, the interruption is minor. 75,000 passengers were stuck due to a computer system failure caused by a power outage.
