Severe thunderstorms severely disrupted London air traffic on Saturday, June 27, 2026, causing flight delays of up to 11 hours at Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
The storms followed a record-breaking heatwave.
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Nearly 800 arriving and departing flights were delayed and dozens were canceled across both major aviation hubs due to the sudden tempests.
Data from FlightAware indicated that Heathrow Airport experienced at least 377 delayed flights, while Gatwick Airport recorded 399 delays.
According to the live arrivals board at Heathrow, a British Airways flight from Santiago, Chile, scheduled to land at 10:00 AM BST, was delayed for 11 hours with an expected arrival time of 21:00 PM BST.
The European aviation agency, Eurocontrol, reported that the most critical air traffic control backlogs were concentrated in the airspace between southeastern England and northwestern Europe.
Eurocontrol noted that an expansive zone of warm, unstable air stretching from northern Spain to southern Sweden would likely foster new storm clouds overnight.
The UK air traffic control service, NATS, noted that the weather disruptions were expected to persist throughout the day due to severe weather forecasts in southeastern England.
The storms followed a record June heatwave where temperatures reached 37.3 degrees Celsius in Suffolk on Friday.
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A passenger named Adam Joseph, 29, described being stranded at Venice Airport in Italy without air conditioning because his connecting flight to Gatwick was delayed by over four hours.
