UK air travel disruption impacting Cyprus flights

Flights to and from Cyprus have been impacted by a technical issue that arose yesterday in the United Kingdom’s air traffic monitoring system, resulting in Europe-wide delays and cancellations.

A total of six flights to Larnaca Airport and four to Paphos were cancelled on Monday, while others experienced delays, Maria Kouroupi, Communications and Marketing Manager of Hermes Airports said, noting that the cancelled flights were expected to depart on Tuesday.

“The problem was resolved several hours after its onset, and flights from the United Kingdom have resumed. Nevertheless, numerous flights, both in Cyprus and other countries, were affected by the issue,” she said.

She added that “in Larnaca Airport, a total of 24 flights were affected, of which six were cancelled but are being rescheduled for today. Also, after the problem was resolved, several flights that had been delayed were departing from the airports of the United Kingdom.”

“Regarding Paphos Airport, a total of 21 flights were impacted, of which four were cancelled. However, they have been rescheduled to depart today,” she added.

“The issue that occurred at several airports in the broader London area affected more than 7,000 passengers,” she said, noting that “we anticipate flight rescheduling in the coming days as well, given the ripple effect on airports.”

Kouroupi also stressed that “flights involving Cyprus were not affected by the issue that occurred at airports in Italy.”

British transport minister Mark Harper said it would take days to resolve the widespread disruption to flights into and out of the country after air traffic control systems were hit by a technical problem.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled or delayed on Monday – one of the country’s busiest travel days – after air traffic controllers were forced to switch to manual systems.

Harper added that government officials did not believe the technical problem was the result of a cyber attack.

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UK air travel disruption to last for days -minister