Birmingham Airport air traffic control fault halts flights Published duration 23 December 2018

image caption Passengers have been advised to check flight departures and arrivals after the problem was reported earlier

Flights have resumed at Birmingham Airport after an air traffic control fault temporarily halted services.

The technical glitch happened at 18:00 GMT and led to flights being suspended or diverted from the airport. "High" delays were reported.

A spokesman for the airport said operations had resumed and thanked passengers for their patience.

Air traffic management firm Eurocontrol said the fault was due to a failure of the electronic flight plan system.

The airport spokesman added: "Birmingham Airport has now resolved the issue and operations have now resumed. We thank passengers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this has caused."

In a statement, Eurocontrol previously said arrivals were "unavailable" and there were "few flights with high delays".

People due to board flights reported having to wait for hours and complained of long delays.

Passengers have been advised to check with their airline regarding departures and arrivals.

It comes after days of travel misery for passengers at Gatwick Airport, which saw roughly 140,000 passengers affected when a drone was apparently spotted around the runway, forcing bosses to ground flights.

Last month, Birmingham airport bosses announced a major expansion plan to grow passengers numbers by 40% over the next 15 years