London, Thanasis Gavos

Warnings for flight delays and cancellations where will last until the end of the week address airports, airlines and aviation industry experts to United Kingdom.

The ongoing problems are due to cessation of smooth operation of the British system air traffic control for about four hours on Monday.

In particular, the automatic flight plan submission system stopped working, resulting in restrictions on the flow of air traffic in the UK, a move that caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights to and from British airports.

The British Independent calculates the number of of canceled flights to 1,200adding that this morning 200,000 passengers were at a different airport than what they had planned to be if their flight was on time.

In addition to Monday flights, cancellations are also announced on Tuesday, mainly for destinations in Europe.

According to the Times, it is being considered that the problem was caused by an incorrect submission of a flight plan by a French airline.

According to the newspaper, officials at Britain’s National Air Traffic Service know what caused the technical problem, but do not know how it disabled the automatic system.

The Minister of Transport, Mark Harper, in his statements on Tuesday morning, moreover, assured that the problem in the flight plan submission system it was technical and not the result of a cyber attack.

“What will be done now with an event of this magnitude is how an independent investigation will be conducted“, Mr. Harper continued, noting that a report will be prepared by the Civil Aviation Authority.

“It’s been almost a decade since we’ve had a major issue like this. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added.