an urgent meeting of the federation is due today. france will ban students from wearing abayas, robes worn by some muslim women, in state run schools. and the uk fire brigades union raise concerns about the migrant barge moored on england's south coast. the home secretary accuses the brigade of political attack. hello, welcome to bbc news now, three hours of fast—moving news, interviews and reaction. we start with our breaking news. a technical issue has hit uk air traffic control systems, with airlines warning of delays to flights. britain's national air traffic services said it was experiencing "technical issues" and has "applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety". and that engineers are working

to identify and fix the fault. this is a technical issue being experienced by the national air—traffic service, responsible for the safe passage of service through uk airspace. they said uk airspace is enclosed but they are —— is not closed but they have applied air traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety. at this stage it is not known, it is not clear exactly what caused this technical issue nor the extent of what the timescale may be in terms of how long the disruption will last and how long it might take for it to be resolved but what we are starting to get a bit of a picture of is the scale of the

disruption. again, that is something that will only really fully emerge in due course so far we have had information from airports and airlines about the beginnings of what the impact is. i am here at heathrow and they have said check with the airline. dublin airport has said they are confirming there are flight cancellations in and out of that airport. the scottish airline loganair who mentioned this disruption quite early on said they hope to operate most interest got in fights but international flights might be subject to delays and if they are flying with them, check their website for the latest information. easyjet said they are working with the relevant authorities. to understand the impact of this issue but that is something which may take to emerge. the national air traffic services

say engineers are working to find and fix the fault and have apologised for any inconvenience to passengers. something that might give you an idea of what potential for disruption there is are these figures which are from the aviation data from. they say that there are 3049 flights that were due to depart uk airports in total today and a further 3054 flights scheduled to arrive so that shows you just how many flights could be affected by this and of course for much of the uk, it is a bank holiday monday and it is near the end of the summer holidays so this really could not have come at a worse time for travellers. some of these statements now that we're getting in from various different airlines and airports. people by this. in the last half hour irish airline

aer lingus has released a statement. manchester airport has released a statement. birmingham airport has released a statement.

with more on this here's our news reporter, nicky schiller. i think it is important to stress that air—traffic control is operating, it is not completely shut as this flight radar map can show you these fights are taking off and landing and there are still a lot of them across england. the issue as they are not doing that as fast as they are not doing that as fast as they usually do. if i zoom in on london and heathrow you can see around basingstoke a stack of planes waiting there, stacking up as they come into land but here we are,

heathrow airport, you can see there are still planes on the tarmac for the planes will come in and land on this runway, we have been seeing them land throughout the morning. normally, a plane would land roughly every 45 seconds at heathrow. but with the issue now and as we keep saying, we don't know exactly what the problem is with the air—traffic control, but it does seem it is not part of the automated systems so the experts you have said have said, they probably are doing more of what they probably are doing more of what they have to do manually, so they are putting more time between each flight that lands, so there will be more time before the planned likes you at heathrow and as you can see at the moment i cannot see one coming into land. if we zoom out, here is the plane coming into land at heathrow and it looks like here if we take a look and i will zoom in a bit on that, we have got a flight here about to take off. flights are

taking off and landing at heathrow and the other airports across the uk, but it is the fact that there is a delay to that. what is happening at a lot of airports as people are being checked in on time, they might not go to the aircraft on time and some of them are sitting on their aircraft on the tarmac because a lot of the airlines will want to be ready to take off if a slot becomes available for air—traffic control. so this one coming into land and you have just seen that one take—off at heathrow as we speak thanks to flight radar 24. i think the issue is going to be airports outside of the united kingdom that are due to have flights coming in over the next few hours. the airlines are not sure how long this issue is going to last, so the airlines have to decide do we want to set the flight going, not knowing what the delay is going to be? i think what will be

interesting over time is to see how many flights we see coming this way heading for the uk versus going out and that is where i think we will see some of the delays and cancellations from the airlines. in the operations rooms of those airlines they will be making those calls now as they have flights abroad, what do they do with it? cancel it straightaway? put a delay into it hoping the situation in the uk will get better and that is what a lot of them are having to decide at the moment, to then be able to tell the passengers whether they are going to be in their destination another night or whether they will be spending a number of hours at the airport and if you, you have been mentioning it is a really busy time in the united kingdom at the moment, a bank holiday monday in the uk and a bank holiday monday in the uk and a lot of families would probably be flying back from their annual summer holidays getting ready for the start

of the new school term so there will be our knock on today that we have been seeing that of course there could be a knock—on over the next few days as the airlines try and get things back to normal because then they will have the situation even if we get air—traffic control back up to normal that their crew and planes may well be in the wrong places for the flights that they did have scheduled over the next few days for them to be able to operate. i think this is going to have a knock—on four flights notjust this is going to have a knock—on four flights not just today this is going to have a knock—on four flights notjust today but over the coming days as the airlines work out where their planes and crews are. but we do reemphasise as you can see, there are flights all across the world and a lot of them are coming into the uk as we speak. the issue is we don't know how long this will last and what the issue itself is at air—traffic control. live now to sally gethin and independent global aviation and travel analyst.

thank you for coming onto the programme. what are your thoughts about what has gone wrong? i programme. what are your thoughts about what has gone wrong?- about what has gone wrong? i think in my career— about what has gone wrong? i think in my career covering _ about what has gone wrong? i think in my career covering aviation, - in my career covering aviation, which is nearly 30 years now, i cannot remember a situation like this, but having said that, national air traffic services, which has a high—tech centre in the uk, is actually relatively new, in the sense that it has been operating for a couple of decades and it is having to resort to manual air—traffic management as it was done before it came into existence. and the other thing about nats is it is meant to be a very efficient manager of those services for international airlines flying over the uk as well so it is

notjust flying over the uk as well so it is not just affecting flying over the uk as well so it is notjust affecting passengers who are inbound to the united kingdom or departing, it is going to have a disruption over the whole of the european air—traffic system and also managing traffic across the north atlantic, so looking at this in context, it has a big ripple effect internationally.— internationally. what about a timescale — internationally. what about a timescale for _ internationally. what about a timescale for this? _ internationally. what about a timescale for this? i - internationally. what about a timescale for this? i know i internationally. what about a timescale for this? i know it | internationally. what about a l timescale for this? i know it is kind of an impossible question to ask but it is the one people who are impacted by this right now suffering delays and of course people potentially travelling tomorrow will be asking. that is the main one, how long will this disruption go on for? nats is updating on its putter account that it is not used to having to put out information like this all the time so the short answer is there is no end in sight

until the route caused is fixed. if you are a passenger stranded on the ground need to look to the short—term to get your needs met and unfortunately that means you need to go to your airline which might be as much in the dark as you are. but they are the ones that have a duty of care to passengers and should be providing food and drink to a reasonable extent and worst—case scenario are hotel for the night but they are not liable for compensation because it is a factor during their control. that is the harsh truth. to be clear on that is that the harsh truth for the airlines? they cannot claim compensation even though it's not their fault claim compensation even though it's not theirfault or claim compensation even though it's not their fault or passengers cannot? . , , , not their fault or passengers cannot? , ., ., , cannot? passengers unfortunately will not be able _ cannot? passengers unfortunately will not be able to _ cannot? passengers unfortunately will not be able to file _ cannot? passengers unfortunately will not be able to file for - will not be able to file for compensation from the carrier of

choice, the airline. what happens between the airline and air traffic services is another matter altogether. and that could hinge on whatever it is the problem that was caused to that airline's disruption. this is why airlines have to absorb a lot of the impact of any external issues. so we already had european air—traffic control issues going on the summer anyway, due to industrial action in some cases, in france. air—traffic controllers went on strike and also we had a lot of bad weather a few days ago at the start of the uk august bank holiday, which was impacting some airlines. airlines are used to having to mitigate in this regard, but of course this is on an unprecedented scale. they will be looking to keep those slots as your report mentioned and keep some basic flow going but they really are at the mercy of the

national air traffic services. fascinating and lots of different spinning plates at the same time. great to have your thoughts. thank you for coming on the programme. paul charles is the ceo of the travel consultancy firm, the pc agency and a former communications director for virgin atlantic. i'm here at kew gardens in west london, and this is directly under the flight path into heathrow airport. and typically, flights are coming over here every 40 seconds to a minute or so on normal days. now, i have to say, they are still coming in and you'll hear another one come in in a minute. so they're definitely still flying in, but they're being effectively manually brought into heathrow airport at the moment in light of this problem. and so they're coming in roughly every 50 seconds or so, which is not too bad. so the controllers are still bringing in the aircraft.

there comes another now overhead, pretty well on schedule. but of course, this is at a time when the it problem has only just occurred and many of these flights were already in uk airspace. they may have been circling overhead for the last 30 minutes or so in some cases, but it's the flights that are yet to depart from destinations abroad that are going to be most affected by the problems. i see. and what about the timing of all this for the the implications of the wider industry? well, of course, this comes about three months after the last major it error affecting uk airports, which involved border gates, the egate system that went down for several hours. and this is yet another sign of the rather creaking uk infrastructure that's in place around our aviation system, whether it's egates on the ground or whether it is these it systems affecting flights going in and out of the uk.

this is infrastructure that's being tested to the limit. there are 3,000 flights departing, or due to depart the uk today, another 3,000 due to come into the uk and it's pretty well back to where things were pre—pandemic in 2019. the it systems still don't seem to be able to cope with this level, this volume of flights that we're seeing. and so what are you suggesting? is the solution either fewer flights or upgrade the tech? undoubtedly, the solution is to upgrade the technology. but this is increasingly complex technology, which is finding it difficult to cope with the aviation system today. the technology has to be improved, but often to improve it, you have to take it down overnight or upgrade it at times when it's less busy. and because of the volume of flights we've been seeing this summer, it's been very difficult for engineers to update the software during the busy summer peak period. so either they're going to have to do it in the next few

weeks and months and improve the systems that way, or spend a lot more money on building up much better infrastructure. they don't have these problems abroad as often as we do. well, i'm joined now by terry tozer. terry is an ex—airline pilot and aviation commentator. thank you for coming on the programme. thank you for coming on the programme-— thank you for coming on the programme. thank you for coming on the rouramme. ., �* m programme. you're welcome. what are our programme. you're welcome. what are yourthoughts— programme. you're welcome. what are your thoughts on _ programme. you're welcome. what are your thoughts on what _ programme. you're welcome. what are your thoughts on what has _ programme. you're welcome. what are your thoughts on what has gone - your thoughts on what has gone wrong? your thoughts on what has gone wron: ? ., your thoughts on what has gone wronu? ., , ., , wrong? your previous interviewee has hit the nail on — wrong? your previous interviewee has hit the nail on the _ wrong? your previous interviewee has hit the nail on the head _ wrong? your previous interviewee has hit the nail on the head really. - hit the nail on the head really. this used to be a nationalised system, it was privatised some years ago and as we have seen with other industries that are being sold off, there is not always the investment in the text that you would like to see. and basically, it cannot cope. give us a kind of pilot's perspective on this. what kind of information will they be getting?

what decisions will they be making? depending on where you are, if you are inbound when this goes pear—shaped, you are obviously interested in what your options are, such as how much fuel have you got for holding? and for diversion and what sort of diversions can you have if the uk system is down? most uk airports will probably be in the same boat, so you are probably looking at may going some way back to europe if you cannot hold long enough to get a landing spot. it will be procedural air—traffic control which is a kind of slow motion manual process where they write the details on a flight strip and have much larger gaps between airports so there is a knock—on effect, it all backs up. airports so there is a knock-on effect, it all backs up.- airports so there is a knock-on effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot _

effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot on _ effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot on the _ effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot on the tarmac, - effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot on the tarmac, do - effect, it all backs up. what if you are or pilot on the tarmac, do you have a sense of whether you are likely to get off the ground and get in the air orare likely to get off the ground and get in the air or are you at the mercy like everyone else? you in the air or are you at the mercy like everyone else?— in the air or are you at the mercy like everyone else? you are at the mercy but — like everyone else? you are at the mercy but depending _ like everyone else? you are at the mercy but depending upon - like everyone else? you are at the mercy but depending upon which l mercy but depending upon which company you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to work for, you will get information from the ground operations people also from the air—traffic controllers who i'm sure we'll do their best to help, as to when you might get a departure slot. you will also be calculating your duty hours limit based on the time you reported for duty and obviously if you are not going to be all to complete the whole duty within those limits, then you probably cannot take off at all.— take off at all. and lastly, give new experience _ take off at all. and lastly, give new experience i _ take off at all. and lastly, give new experience i know - take off at all. and lastly, give new experience i know it's - take off at all. and lastly, give new experience i know it's an l new experience i know it's an impossible question but i have to ask because it's the one everyone impacted by this will want to know the answer to. any idea on a timeline? disruption on this scale, when can things get back to normal?

it often runs into the next day or even the day after because everybody is in the wrong place at the wrong time and so are the aircraft and the crew are out of hours and it becomes a logistical nightmare for the operations departments to try and sort it all out. it is very hard to see. because it will depend on each individual airline, where the crews are, where the aircraft and which of their flights have been worst affected. . ~ their flights have been worst affected. ., ~ , ., their flights have been worst affected. . ~' , ., , their flights have been worst affected. ., ~ , ., , . their flights have been worst affected. . ~ , . ., affected. thank you very much for cominu affected. thank you very much for coming on — affected. thank you very much for coming on the _ affected. thank you very much for coming on the programme - affected. thank you very much for coming on the programme and . affected. thank you very much for - coming on the programme and lending us your insight from your years of experience. thank you very much. that's ok. some other breaking news on the other story, some other breaking news on the otherstory, on some other breaking news on the other story, on the women's football in spain. we have a one line

statement from afp news agency. spain prosecutors opened preliminary six abuse probe over mr rubiales that line is spain prosecutors open preliminary sex abuse probe over luis rubiales case. the man you are seeing there, for the football federation in spain, you will know of course that when the women's team won the world cup recently in australia, beating england, at the end of the four the final he kissed one of the women players on the lips, she says without consent so there has been plenty of criticism. there has been a suspension of him ljy there has been a suspension of him by fifa football was not world governing body and another development, we see spain

prosecutors opening preliminary sex abuse probe into him and his actions. that is from the afp news agency, that isjenni hermoso, pictures here of the spain player who said there was no consent to that kiss on the pitch after the world cup win. plenty of developments over the weekend and now this morning we are waiting for a couple of meetings and the outcomes of a couple of meetings too. one specifically of the spanish football federation which is meeting to consider its president, luis rubiales, whilst we wait for that we have this update, spain prosecutors open preliminary sex abuse probe over luis rubiales kiss. as we get no contact to the background of that we will bring that to you of course. we are going to go back to the

travel chaos that has been caused by the disruption, the technical issues to the air—traffic control systems here in the uk which is impacting passengers notjust here but right around the world, anyone flying into or out of the uk are being impacted. what is the latest? aha, or out of the uk are being impacted. what is the latest?— what is the latest? a few things i wanted to round-up. _ what is the latest? a few things i wanted to round-up. they - what is the latest? a few things i wanted to round-up. they point i j wanted to round—up. they point i wanted to round—up. they point i wanted to round—up. they point i wanted to pick up you, you spoke to a guess about the fact that the airlines, because it's out of their control, will not have to pay compensation to passengers. a lot of passengers will be looking at their own travel insurance to see if it is covered and the bbc news website and 3pp covered and the bbc news website and app have a live page up and running at the moment have in the last couple of minutes posted a really useful guide on what your rights are and what you could look at doing if you are in this situation, maybe watching a stock on a plane on the tarmac, then that is going to be

useful for you, tarmac, then that is going to be usefulfor you, you tarmac, then that is going to be useful for you, you will find that on the bbc news website live page. the other thing we have seen is a whatsapp message sent to british airways staff and it is quite interesting. it says that the national system has, they say, had to fall back to manually processing some things so there are flights landing and taking off but because some of those things are having to happen manually they are not doing them as fast as possible, it also goes on to say british airways are identifying suitable diversion airfields if required and another of your guests mentioned it might get to a situation where british planes land outside of the uk because they don't have a fuel if they don't how long it will last so also the text sent to british airways staff that

aircraft that overseas airports must not depart until they are told by ba they can and that again picks up on one of the things we have been talking about, the delays we are seeing already are at airports outside of the united kingdom, with planes that have yet to take off and british airways from that text we have seen suggesting that none of those planes are going to be allowed to take off from airports around the world back to the uk until ba is sure that they are able to land back so that going forward is going to be a crucial issue with delays over the coming days. a crucial issue with delays over the coming days— a crucial issue with delays over the coming days. thank you so much for that brilliant — coming days. thank you so much for that brilliant update _ coming days. thank you so much for that brilliant update information. - that brilliant update information. backin that brilliant update information. back in just a moment. that brilliant update information. back injust a moment. earlier i spoke on the phone. earlier i spoke on the phone to michele robson, who's stuck on the tarmac atjersey airport. she's attempting to get back to london.

i'm here sat on the tarmac atjersey airport. you poor thing, i presume you don't want to be doing that. what's happening? what have you been told? so, we're currently about an hour later than when we should have taken off. we had a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. we had to evacuate the terminal earlier as well and stand outside due to a fire alarm. oh, dear. but we are now all on board and the pilot has said, basically, that they have told air traffic control that we are ready, but at the moment, we don't have any kind of slot so we're just hoping that we can get a slot, since we're sitting ready, whereas obviously other fights here have been delayed indefinitely, cos they don't actually even have the aircraft here. ah. and for you and your fellow passengers there, have you got supplies? have you got food, water? are you going to be ok if the delay carries on? yes, they've just come round and given us all some water. we've only been here for not even quite an hour yet, so at the moment, it's absolutely fine. jersey airport was not too busy today so it's not

a bad place to be stuck. everyone is very calm on—board currently. so we are pretty good here. and what about the information we've kind got so far? there's air traffic control, you know, digital systems, technical issues, we don't know much more than that. so i'm actually a former air traffic controller and the outage is affecting both centres in the uk, so there's one at swanwick and one in prestwick in scotland. and it's actually the flight planning system. so each aircraft, for the controller to be able to handle it, they need to have the information about, you know, what is the flight number, where is it going? and all that is presented to them on their screen. now, if the flight planning system goes down, they have four hours' worth of data stored but after that point they have to go manual, and as far as we can tell, they have now not been able to fix the failure from earlier this morning and they have gone manual, which is what's causing the delays. what is likely to happen now is that obviously controllers don't do that very often. they are not used to working that way, though they do practice for it. once they get more comfortable then

i would expect them to maybe start allowing a few more aircraft to depart. but obviously there will be quite a backlog so i would be expecting quite a few cancellations mainly for domestic and short—haul flights. i really interesting chat, notjust someone sitting on tarmac but also that insight into, given her previousjob that insight into, given her previous job experience, that insight into, given her previousjob experience, into that insight into, given her previous job experience, into why those delays are happening. important to underline again that there is not a threat to safety in these issues, when this technical issue hits the digital system, the manual system of inputting that data the flight details and everything like that, itjust means that everything has to happen slower because of that, it is not like flights are coming in blind or anything like that. the other thing,

the misconception potentially is that air—traffic control, the technical issue means that airspace is closed either, it is very much open, just working at a slower rate. let's see if we have got any live pictures to give us a flavour of what his going on, these are live pictures of heathrow airport, planes pretty stationery on the ground unfortunately, many of them would like to be in the air i'm sure, many people in that airport terminal would like to be on board them off the ground and getting going, but when you have a reduced flow rate, is the technical phrase here, what that means is basically a bigger gap between planes taking off and landing. that of course then means more delays if you are at an airport waiting to get on a plane. therefore if those delays add up to much you get the cancellations but as you can see, planes still coming into land and there has been ever since this

started, a steady stream of planes coming in to land. one of our people are suggesting that the plan might be to get planes into land rather than out, given how much fuel the aeroplanes have on board, how much stacking and waiting they have on board, how much time they may have spent in the air, all questions about how much time they will have spent on the ground. they want to get them up into the air, but both are still happening right now. little consolation, though, if people are stuck. the other thing that may happen and they start happening in the hours ahead are diversions, explains up in the air and the decision is made to divert to a different airport, for example, in europe, nearby, that could potentially mean that not only passengers, being in the wrong place, expecting to be in the uk,