Daijiworld Media Network - London
London, Sep 9: More than 1,000 flights were cancelled across the United Kingdom after a technical problem at the country's air traffic control provider, NATS, triggered widespread disruption at major airports.
According to aircraft tracking platform FlightRadar24, nearly 1,300 flights to and from British airports were cancelled. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh were among the airports affected, while Dublin Airport in neighbouring Ireland also reported dozens of cancellations.
NATS said the problem affected its flight data processing system. Although the technical fault was resolved by early evening, the air traffic control provider warned that it would take time to clear the backlog of disrupted flights.
“Recovery from today’s system issue has taken longer than we had hoped,” NATS said, adding that operations had returned to normal and efforts were underway to clear the backlog.
Heathrow Airport, the UK's busiest airport, suspended arrivals for the remainder of Tuesday, while departures gradually resumed amid continuing disruption. Airlines were forced to cancel, delay and divert flights as aircraft and crew were left out of position.
British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of passengers. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its customers had been disrupted, while easyJet, KLM, Eurowings and other airlines also faced significant cancellations.
Flight cancellations and delays continued on Wednesday, with FlightRadar24 reporting further disruptions to services operating from London airports.
Air India warned that some of its services could also be affected as aircraft and crew schedules were disrupted following the incident. The airline advised passengers to check their flight status before travelling to the airport.
The disruption also affected Arsenal's Champions League preparations. The team's squad was scheduled to travel to Naples for its match against Napoli, but the delayed flight forced the club to cancel a planned press conference.
The latest incident has once again raised questions about the resilience of Britain's aviation infrastructure. A radar-related technical problem in July last year had disrupted flights for several hours at major UK airports. An even more serious failure occurred in 2023, when problems with automatic flight-plan processing resulted in hundreds of cancellations and delays, affecting more than 700,000 passengers.
The latest outage also prompted strong criticism from airlines. Ryanair COO Neal McMahon called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to step down, while Wizz Air demanded urgent reforms to the country's air traffic control system.
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was seeking assurances that the incident would be thoroughly investigated and that systems supporting Britain's aviation network were fit for purpose.
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe said the organisation had not yet determined the exact cause of the technical failure.
“We don't have an idea yet of exactly what went wrong,” Rolfe said, adding that an investigation was underway.