A technical malfunction at Nats, Britain’s air traffic control services provider, disrupted operations across UK airports on Tuesday, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. The fault occurred in the flight processing system beginning around 1pm and persisted for approximately four hours before being resolved. During the outage, more than 1,000 flights were cancelled by 8pm Tuesday, with an additional 177 cancellations confirmed for Wednesday, according to flight tracking data. The breakdown impacted departures from major airports including London Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted, eventually extending to incoming flights across southern England.
Airlines reported substantial passenger disruptions, with Ryanair indicating over 65,000 passengers experienced delays and approximately 50 flights were cancelled. British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights and confirmed operational disruptions would extend into Wednesday. The ripple effects extended beyond UK borders, with European flights held at foreign airports as the disruption cascaded through the region’s airspace coordination systems. Nats provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports across the country.
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe stated the company took responsibility for the incident and expressed sympathy to affected travelers. He asserted the malfunction differed from technical problems that caused disruptions in 2023 and 2025, and characterized such occurrences as relatively uncommon. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander indicated she would seek assurances regarding system improvements and address parliament on the matter.
The incident prompted fresh calls from airlines for systemic overhaul at Nats. Ryanair renewed demands for Rolfe’s resignation, while Wizz Air characterized the provider as unfit for its current role managing critical aviation infrastructure. This represents the third significant air traffic control failure within a three-year period, intensifying scrutiny on the organization’s operational reliability and capacity to serve the national aviation network.
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Article summary produced by Claude AI