More than 1,000 flights were cancelled at airports across the United Kingdom following a technical failure at a NATS air traffic control facility, disrupting flight operations and leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Flight tracking platform Flightradar24 reported that about 1,300 flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on Tuesday, while a further 177 cancellations had been recorded by Wednesday, with nearly all of them involving London Heathrow Airport.
The disruption followed a technical problem at NATS’ Shanwick air traffic control facility, which affected the management of flights across UK airspace. NATS initially said it was investigating a technical issue affecting flight departures and later confirmed the problem was within its flight processing system. Engineers worked urgently to restore normal operations, and a fix was implemented by the evening.
Flightradar24 said that by 1700 UTC, 625 flights had been cancelled at UK airports as airlines adjusted their operations following the technical problem. Among the airlines with the highest number of cancellations were easyJet with 218, British Airways with 132, Ryanair with 41, KLM with 37 and Eurowings with 22.
Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Stansted, Luton, Edinburgh and London City airports were among the worst affected. Flightradar24 said London Heathrow was listed by Eurocontrol as unavailable for arrivals between 1400 and 1600 UTC, with inbound flights holding or diverting. Heathrow later said departures had resumed but warned that disruption was expected to continue.
Several individual flights were also affected. British Airways flight BA169 from London to Shanghai reportedly turned back over Romania because of a technical issue before diverting to Cardiff. American Airlines flight AA142 from New York to London, which had initially intended to divert to Dublin after holding, was later expected to land at Heathrow. Philippine Airlines flight PR116 from Manila to Vancouver also stopped transmitting the emergency 7700 transponder code after flying at about 10,000 feet, with the aircraft reportedly expected to divert to Anchorage.
NATS apologised to passengers and said recovery from the system issue had taken longer than hoped. “This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover,” NATS said in an update. The organisation said it would continue working closely with airlines and airports to clear the backlog.
The disruption triggered strong criticism from airlines. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected and called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign. Wizz Air also criticised NATS, arguing that repeated failures at a critical national infrastructure provider were unacceptable. British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job”.
