Heathrow and Gatwick face more delays after UK air traffic glitch grounds hundreds of flights
Hundreds of flights across the UK were cancelled on Tuesday after a fault at air traffic control provider Nats, leaving tens of thousands of passengers
Hundreds of flights across the UK were cancelled on Tuesday after a fault at air traffic control provider Nats, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded or delayed. More disruption is expected on Wednesday, with Heathrow and Gatwick among the airports hit.
The glitch rippled far beyond London. Airports in Scotland and Ireland also reported problems, while some flights could not leave overseas airports because landings in the UK were restricted. Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said as many as 1,000 flights were cancelled.
Passengers faced a long wait
With only a limited number of aircraft able to take off, the system quickly clogged up. Some passengers saw departures cancelled outright, while others faced delays that stretched into the evening and into the next day.
EasyJet said it cancelled 200 flights. British Airways cancelled more than 100. The scale of the disruption showed how quickly one control-room problem can spread through a busy network, affecting short-haul and longer routes at the same time.
Nats promises a full investigation
Martin Rolfe, the boss of Nats, apologised and said there would be a full investigation into what went wrong. Nats said it had taken “longer than hoped” to fix the issue.
Rolfe did not say whether he was thinking about his position, telling the BBC there would be “lots of time for that later” and that his focus was on making sure the system recovered. The wording underlined the pressure now facing the UK’s air traffic provider as airlines and airports count the cost.
Questions over resilience
This is not the first time Nats has faced serious disruption. Ryanair and Wizz Air have both called for an overhaul of the organisation, with Wizz Air saying the system was “not fit for purpose” in its current form.
For airlines, the issue goes beyond one bad day. A fault that holds back take-offs can cascade into missed slots, crew knock-on effects and aircraft ending up out of position for later flights. For passengers, it means missed connections and a new round of uncertainty. The next test for Nats will be whether it can restore normal operations fast enough to prevent Wednesday from turning into another day of cancellations.
