A technical issue at Nats, Britain’s air traffic control services provider, caused significant disruption to air travel across the UK on Tuesday. The failure began around 1pm and affected departures from major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted. The company identified and resolved the problem in its flight processing system by 4:40pm, approximately three hours after the initial disruption began.
By Tuesday evening, more than 1,000 flights had been cancelled, with at least 177 additional cancellations scheduled for Wednesday, primarily at London Heathrow according to flight tracking data. The disruption extended to incoming flights across southern England and had knock-on effects throughout Europe. Airlines reported significant passenger impacts: Ryanair stated that over 65,000 passengers experienced delays and 50 flights were cancelled, while British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of customers. Heathrow suspended arrivals for the remainder of Tuesday evening while resuming departures with ongoing disruptions.
Nats provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports and acknowledged the complexity of the recovery process. The company stated the fault differed from outages that occurred in 2023 and 2025. Chief executive Martin Rolfe expressed sympathy for affected passengers and acknowledged responsibility, though he characterized such incidents as relatively rare. He indicated that Nats was working through the night with airlines and airports to clear the backlog of disruptions.
The incident prompted renewed calls from airlines for systemic changes. Ryanair’s chief operating officer repeated demands for Rolfe to resign, while Wizz Air questioned whether Nats was adequately equipped to manage critical aviation infrastructure. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was scheduled to receive a briefing on the breakdown and address Parliament regarding the incident during a civil aviation bill reading.
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