A technical issue at Nats, Britain’s air traffic control services provider, caused significant disruption across the country’s aviation network on Tuesday. The failure began around 1pm and affected departing flights from major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted. Nats identified the problem in its flight processing system and announced a fix at 4:40pm, approximately three hours after the initial disruption began. However, by that time, the majority of scheduled departures had not yet taken off.
The scale of the disruption was substantial. More than 1,000 flights were cancelled by about 8pm Tuesday, with at least 177 additional cancellations scheduled for Wednesday, predominantly at London Heathrow according to flight tracking data. Individual airlines reported significant impacts: Ryanair noted over 65,000 passengers delayed and 50 flights cancelled, while British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights. The effects extended beyond UK borders, with Eurocontrol reporting that some inbound flights from European airports had to be held due to the disruption.
Airlines and industry figures criticized the incident, with several calling for leadership changes at Nats. Ryanair’s chief operating officer renewed demands for the resignation of Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe, stating that the organization was not fit for its current purpose. Wizz Air similarly expressed concern that a critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly disrupt aviation operations. Rolfe expressed sympathy for affected passengers and acknowledged responsibility but characterized such incidents as relatively rare.
This represented the third major air traffic control stoppage in Britain within roughly three years. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced plans to brief MPs on the incident during the civil aviation bill’s second reading in Parliament. Nats stated that the fault differed from previous outages and emphasized ongoing coordination with airlines and airports to manage recovery efforts overnight and into the following day. British Airways indicated that disruption would continue affecting operations into Wednesday, offering free rebooking through Friday for affected passengers.
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