Ryanair said some 63,000 of its customers had their flights cancelled during the industry-wide air traffic control disaster that occurred last week and left thousands of travellers stranded abroad.

On Monday, August 28th, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) were unable to execute flight plans automatically, resulting in the cancellation of more than a quarter of all flights to and from UK airports.

The ripple effect reportedly derailed around a quarter of a million people's travel plans over the course of two more days.

The ATC malfunction, according to Ryanair, “has still not been explained.”

The event, which occurred at one of the worst periods of the year with limited available capacity owing to it being the end of the summer holiday for many schools, has angered airlines.

Johan Lundgren, the CEO of competitor easyJet, requested last week that a “full independent review” be conducted into the mistake and emphasised that it “must not happen again.”

Nats claims that it was obliged to resort to manual inspections because of an “unusual piece of data” it received.

On Friday of last week, Mark Harper, the British transport secretary, met with NATS, the UK Civil Aviation Authority, the UK Border Force, airlines, airports, and trade associations to examine the issue.

NATS is investigating what occurred, and on Monday they will deliver a drafted report to Mr. Harper.

Following the meeting on Friday, the minister stated that according to airline reports, “most customers” impacted by the disruption had already arrived at their destinations.

However since many flights from well-traveled locations were packed, thousands of tourists were left stranded abroad.