UK airports hit by delays after air traffic control failure

Flights at several British airports were delayed on Monday following an air traffic control failure, according to UK air traffic control provider NATS.

The disruption came less than two weeks after a separate issue caused flight disruptions across the country.

Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast airports reported delays linked to an issue at NATS’ Prestwick centre in Scotland. London Gatwick and London City airports also warned passengers of some disruption.

British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander, who has been reviewing the future of NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe following repeated disruptions, said the issue had been resolved and systems were returning to normal.

“I know this will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue,” she said on X, reported Reuters.

Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, said around 25,000 of its passengers were affected by delays caused by Monday’s disruption and renewed its call for NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to resign.

easyJet said it had cancelled some flights, while British Airways warned passengers that they were likely to face disruption on Monday.

NATS said Monday’s delays were caused by a connectivity issue that was “unrelated to the issue two weeks ago.” The earlier incident was caused by a software defect that led to around 2,000 flight cancellations and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.

By 0858 GMT on Monday, 24 flights had been cancelled.

“Airports south of Manchester are broadly unaffected, however flights ​heading north and flights departing Scottish airports are currently subject to ​some ⁠delay,” a NATS statement said.

A previous outage in August 2023 cost airlines around £100 million ($134 million) and caused widespread travel disruption. easyJet said Monday’s disruption highlighted weaknesses in the air traffic operator’s systems.

“This, once again, calls into question the resilience ​of NATS' systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures,” easyJet said.