1,000+ flights cancelled as UK air traffic control system fails

A technical failure at Britain’s air traffic control provider caused widespread flight disruption across the United Kingdom on Tuesday (Sept. 8), leading to hundreds of delays and cancellations and prompting fresh concerns about the resilience of the country’s aviation infrastructure.

1,300 flights to and from UK airports were scrapped, according to flight-tracking service Flightradar24, including services at London Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton, Edinburgh and Bristol airports, Reuters reports.

NATS said the problem affected its flight data processing system and was resolved by 7:34 p.m. BST. The air traffic control provider said safety was not compromised during the incident.

"Recovery from today’s system issue has taken longer than we had hoped. Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights," NATS wrote on X.

Despite the system returning to normal, airlines and airports faced a significant backlog as operations recovered.

FlightAware data showed approximately 490 departures had been delayed across six major airports — Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton, Edinburgh and Bristol — as of 3:18 p.m. GMT. Another 525 arrivals across those airports had either been delayed or cancelled.

At Heathrow alone, 38 of 661 scheduled arrivals were cancelled or unable to operate, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.

British Airways was the airport's most heavily affected carrier, cancelling 16 of its 333 scheduled departures.

Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were impacted, with some delays stretching to eight hours.

The low-cost carrier cancelled more than 50 flights and called for NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to resign.

The disruption has renewed scrutiny of Britain's air traffic control infrastructure, which has experienced several major technical problems in recent years.

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it expects NATS to provide a full report on Tuesday's incident, after which the regulator will consider whether further action is required to improve the reliability of the country's air traffic control system.

The latest failure comes three years after a flight-plan processing malfunction caused widespread disruption across Britain's airports.

In 2024, the CAA called on NATS to review its contingency plans for system outages following that incident.

Another technical problem emerged in July 2025, when a radar-related issue disrupted flights for more than four hours at major airports in London and elsewhere, including Heathrow.

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