Dozens of Gatwick flights were disrupted on Saturday amid a systems outage which triggered a fresh call from Ryanair for the boss of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) to stand down.
Problems started early in the morning with dozens of departing and arriving flights reportedly affected.
A Gatwick spokesperson said on Saturday afternoon: “There was an outage to a local Nats system earlier this morning which has now been rectified.
“Some passengers may experience delays. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
The spokesperson added that one flight was cancelled and two were diverted from Gatwick.
A Nats spokesperson said on Saturday: “For a short period earlier this morning we had a technical issue that was quickly fixed.
“To make sure safety was maintained departures were paused temporarily but were resumed around 8am.
“We are working with airlines to minimise any delays and would like to apologise for anyone whose journey has been affected.”
The air traffic issue arose three months after widespread disruption was caused on August bank holiday Monday by what was described by the head of Nats Martin Rolfe as a “one in 15 million” occurrence.
Ryanair group chief executive Michael O’Leary renewed his call for the Nats chief executive to quit or be removed by the UK government after what was described as a Gatwick air traffic control system collapse on Saturday “delaying hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers”.
He said: “After the August Nats system failure Martin Rolfe claimed it was a one in 15 million tech glitch. Yet here we are again three months later, and UK Nats fails again at Gatwick.”
O’Leary pointed to “thousands of passengers” facing long delays, diversions and cancellations.
He added: “These repeated Nats system failures are unique to the UK and are not repeated in any other European ATC service.”
Which? Travel editor Rory Boland said: “It is unacceptable that Gatwick passengers have once again been hit by air traffic control problems after repeated issues in the last few months.
“Though compensation will not be payable as these delays are outside of airlines’ control, carriers must ensure they meet their legal obligations to look after passengers and provide them with support and help with refunds and rerouting – including with other carriers if necessary.”