Hundreds of flights delayed, cancelled after UK air traffic control glitch | Aviation News
Air Traffic Control Outage Disrupts Flights Across the UK
LONDON — A technical malfunction in the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) system caused significant disruptions to flights at major UK airports, including London Heathrow and Gatwick, leading to hundreds of cancellations and delays on Tuesday.
The incident echoes a similar failure from three years ago, when a flight-plan processing issue at NATS resulted in even more extensive travel delays.
On social media platform X, NATS acknowledged the frustration experienced by passengers and confirmed that the issue with its flight data processing system had been resolved. “Recovery from today’s system issue has taken longer than we had hoped. Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” the statement read.
Despite NATS’ assurances, airlines have expressed serious concerns regarding the reliability of the air traffic control system. Ryanair reported that over 65,000 passengers faced delays of up to eight hours, with more than 50 flights cancelled as a result of the disruption.
Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, criticized NATS leadership, stating in a video on X, “Despite promises and assurances that they would fix the systems, once again NATS, under Martin Rolfe’s leadership, have failed UK travelers and airlines.”
Flight-tracking data from FlightAware indicated approximately 490 departure delays across six airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton, Edinburgh, and Bristol, as of 15:18 GMT. The site reported that about 525 arrivals at these airports were either cancelled or delayed.
Aviation analyst John Strickland highlighted the severe consequences of such outages, noting that even a brief disruption can trigger significant cascading delays throughout tightly scheduled airline networks. “A few hours of outage may on the face of it sound limited, but the impact is enormous when a substantial number of airports across the UK are affected,” Strickland said.
In response to the technical issues, the UK Civil Aviation Authority indicated it would expect NATS to provide a comprehensive report on the system failure. Following the review, the authority will determine whether any reforms are needed to enhance the reliability of the UK’s air traffic control system.
