UK Travel Chaos: Nearly 1,300 Flights Cancelled After Air Traffic Control Glitch

More than 1,000 flights were cancelled across the United Kingdom on Tuesday after a technical failure at the country’s air traffic control provider, NATS, triggered widespread disruption at major airports.

Aircraft tracking platform FlightRadar24 reported that nearly 1,300 flights to and from UK airports had been cancelled. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh were among the airports affected, while Dublin Airport in neighbouring Ireland also reported a number of cancellations.

NATS Says System Fault Has Been Resolved

NATS said the disruption was caused by a fault in its flight data processing system. The air traffic control provider later confirmed that the technical issue had been resolved, but warned that it would take time to clear the backlog created by the outage.

NATS said its systems were operating normally again and that teams were working to restore services as quickly as possible. The organisation also apologised to passengers affected by the disruption.

Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, suspended arrivals for the rest of Tuesday, while departures resumed amid ongoing disruption. Airlines were forced to cancel, delay or divert services as aircraft and crew were left out of position.

British Airways, Air India Among Airlines Affected

British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights, disrupting travel plans for tens of thousands of passengers. Ryanair also reported significant disruption, with more than 65,000 customers affected.

Other airlines reporting cancellations included easyJet, KLM, Eurowings and Ryanair. FlightRadar24 said 177 flights had already been cancelled in London on Wednesday as the impact of the outage continued.

Air India warned that some of its services could also be affected because aircraft and crew had been displaced following the incident. The airline advised passengers to check their flight status before travelling to the airport.

Arsenal’s Travel Plans Disrupted

The disruption also affected Arsenal’s Champions League preparations. The team’s squad was scheduled to travel to Naples ahead of Wednesday’s match against Napoli, but a flight delay forced the club to cancel a planned press conference.

Fresh Questions Over UK Aviation Infrastructure

The latest failure has renewed concerns about the resilience of Britain’s air traffic control infrastructure. It follows a radar-related technical problem in July last year that disrupted flights at several major UK airports for more than four hours.

A more serious failure occurred in 2023, when an issue with the automatic processing of flight plans caused widespread cancellations and delays, affecting more than 700,000 passengers.

Ryanair Calls For NATS Chief’s Removal

The latest outage has also triggered criticism from airlines. Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to be removed, while Wizz Air called for urgent reforms to the UK’s air traffic control system.

McMahon accused NATS of repeated failures and urged the UK government to intervene. Ryanair said around 150,000 of its passengers had been affected by the disruption and that more than 200 flights had been cancelled.

Investigation Underway

UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was seeking assurances that the incident would be fully investigated and that the systems supporting Britain’s aviation network were reliable.

NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe said the organisation had not yet established the precise cause of the failure.

“We don’t have an idea yet of exactly what went wrong,” Rolfe said, adding that an investigation was continuing.

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority said it expected NATS to submit a detailed report on the incident before deciding whether additional measures were needed to improve the reliability of the country’s air traffic control network.