Flight chaos as air-traffic control failure causes cancellations and diversions in Greece
Flights are starting to resume while ‘efforts for full restoration of the technical issues are continued’, according to Athens airport
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Hundreds of flights to, from and within Greece have been cancelled or delayed due to a failure of the air-traffic control system.
The leading Greek airline, Aegean, has cancelled dozens of flights, mainly to and from Athens. It told passengers a “technical issue affecting the radio frequency systems of the Hellenic Aviation Service Provider, which has been ongoing since the early morning hours continues to cause a significant reduction in capacity within Greek airspace”.
Some flights to Athens have been diverted to Rome and Dubrovnik, while passengers heading for Thessaloniki on SAS are in Budapest and Transavia from Amsterdam diverted to the Albanian capital, Tirana. A flight from Vilnius to Heraklion in Crete is currently in Larnaca, Cyprus.
One British passenger, John Berry, told The Independent: “Hopefully we will still get home tonight. Just waiting for the flight LS1709 from Manchester to take off to collect us, as this is the last flight out of Athens for Jet2 until February.”
The outbound Jet2 flight is now en route and is expected to arrive around 7pm, four hours behind schedule.
EasyJet told passengers from Manchester whose flight to Athens was cancelled: “This is due to an ATH airport related airspace closure.
“The disruption to your flight is outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance.”
British Airways cancelled one of its morning departures from Heathrow to Athens. In the opposite direction, Aegean grounded its evening Athens-Heathrow flight, and the corresponding overnight inbound leg to the Greek capital.
Ryanair has cancelled flights from Athens to Malta, Rome and Bologna.
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.
Athens airport later posted: “The Hellenic Aviation Service Provider started gradual release of some flights in accordance with air-traffic control capacity availability. Efforts for full restoration of the technical issues are continued.”
