'India's aviation infra better than West': Milind Deora after London flight diverted amid UK disruption

Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora on Wednesday praised India's aviation infrastructure and customer service after his flight to London was diverted to Amsterdam amid a disruption at the UK's air traffic control system.

"Flight to London diverted to Amsterdam yesterday after the UK airport shutdown. 18 hours at Schiphol, luggage can't be offloaded & a Dutch transport strike rules out trains," Deora said in a post on X. "We often complain about India, but our aviation infra & customer service are often better than the West."

Must Read: Heathrow ATC disruption hits India-UK connectivity, multiple flights affected

UK Air Traffic Control Failure Disrupts Flights

Britain's air traffic control provider, NATS, suffered a technical failure in its flight-processing system on Tuesday afternoon. The outage restricted air traffic across the UK, forcing airlines to cancel, delay, or divert flights at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, and other airports.

NATS said the problem has been resolved and ruled out a cyberattack. The disruption continued to affect India-UK connectivity on Wednesday as airlines worked to restore schedules.

Air India, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and IndiGo were among the carriers affected. Airlines have had to reposition aircraft and crew, meaning the impact has extended beyond flights directly affected by Tuesday's outage.

An IndiGo flight from Delhi to London Heathrow, 6E3, was diverted to Paris amid the disruption and was subsequently affected by operational constraints at Heathrow.

More Than 1,000 Flights Cancelled

The scale of the disruption was significant.

Reuters reported that more than 1,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday.

Flightradar24 data showed around 1,300 flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on Tuesday.

Another 177 cancellations had been recorded for Wednesday, nearly all at Heathrow.

Cirium data showed that 38 of Heathrow's 661 scheduled arrivals were cancelled or unable to operate on Tuesday.

British Airways was among the carriers most affected at Heathrow. It cancelled 16 of its 333 scheduled departures on Tuesday, according to Cirium.

British Airways said it cancelled or diverted about 100 flights, while Ryanair said roughly 150,000 passengers were affected.

Heathrow said on Wednesday that flights were operating but warned passengers to expect knock-on impacts as aircraft and crew were repositioned.