UK Flight Disruption Continues After Major Air Traffic Control Failure

World 10:22 AM - 2026-09-09

Heathrow Airport.

Travellers across the UK faced further disruption on Wednesday after a major technical failure at the country’s air traffic control provider caused more than 1,000 flight cancellations and widespread delays.

Flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 reported that 1,300 flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on Tuesday, while a further 177 flights scheduled for Wednesday had been cancelled. Nearly all of Wednesday’s cancellations were at London Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport.

The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides air traffic control services in the UK, said the technical problem affecting its flight-data processing system had been resolved. However, it warned that restoring normal operations would take time because of the complex knock-on effects across the aviation network.

Heathrow said departures had resumed after the disruption, but warned passengers to expect continued delays as airlines worked to reposition aircraft and crew affected by Tuesday’s outage. The airport advised travellers to check with their airlines before travelling.

Gatwick Airport also warned passengers of continued disruption, while several other airports across the UK were affected by the incident.

British Airways said it had cancelled or diverted around 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

Ryanair said around 150,000 of its passengers had been affected by delays of up to eight hours and that it had cancelled more than 200 flights. The airline renewed its call for NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to resign.

The disruption also affected Arsenal Football Club, which was due to face Napoli in Naples on Wednesday in a Champions League fixture. The club was forced to cancel its pre-match press conference after the team’s flight was delayed.

British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the government was seeking assurances that lessons would be learned from the incident and that the systems supporting the aviation sector were capable of meeting the demands placed upon them.

Ryanair Chief Operations Officer Neal McMahon, meanwhile, renewed criticism of NATS and called for the government to intervene, arguing that the disruption had once again left passengers facing serious difficulties.

The latest failure has renewed concerns over the resilience of the UK’s air traffic control infrastructure. It follows a major NATS system failure in August 2023, which caused widespread delays and cancellations and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers. The 2023 disruption also cost airlines and other operators more than £100 million.

NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe has said the organisation had not yet fully established what caused the latest technical failure. He also ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause and apologised to passengers affected by the disruption.



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