Volcanoes, computer bugs: Airport glitches always costly

A fire that closed London's Heathrow Airport has sparked one of the most serious disruptions to air travel in years.

- Associated Press

LONDON: More than 1,300 flights were cancelled and hundreds of thousands of journeys were disrupted following the blaze at an electrical substation, whose cause is under investigation.

But this isn't the first time a major incident has upended global air travel.

A faulty software update sent to millions of Microsoft customers by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused technological havoc worldwide. Airlines lost access to their booking systems, thousands of flights were cancelled and tens of thousands were delayed, leading to long lines at airports in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

A glitch at Britain's National Air Traffic Services in August 2023 meant flight plans had to be processed manually, rather than automatically. Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled at the height of the summer holidays.

The NATS system had already suffered several software-related failures in the years after it opened in 2002.