Air Traffic Fault Disrupts Hundreds of UK Flights

A technical fault at British air traffic control provider NATS caused widespread disruption at major UK airports on Tuesday, with hundreds of flights canceled and hundreds more delayed.

Close to 1,000 flights were affected. NATS reported it had implemented a fix and that its flight system was starting to recover while it continued to work with airlines and airports on restoring operations.

The incident drew sharp criticism from airlines. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected by delays of up to eight hours and that it canceled more than 50 flights. The airline renewed its call for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign. Wizz Air also called for urgent reform, describing NATS as “not fit for purpose in its current form”.

The incident is the latest in a series of failures affecting British air traffic control. A major outage in 2023 cost airlines more than £100m ($135.49m) in refunds and compensation, according to industry estimates. In July last year, a radar-related technical problem caused delays and cancellations for more than four hours at major airports.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority expects NATS to provide a full report on Tuesday’s incident and will then consider whether further steps are needed to ensure the reliability of the country’s air traffic control system.

(Reuters, max)