UK air traffic control failure grounds hundreds of flights at Heathrow and Gatwick

actu.fr (French) — September 8, 2026 at 06:01 PM UTC

A major technical failure at UK air traffic control (NATS) grounded hundreds of flights on Tuesday, September 8, causing widespread cancellations and disruption across British airports. By 16:00 GMT, 425 flights to or from the UK had been cancelled, affecting London Heathrow, Gatwick, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. Dublin Airport also reported 44 cancellations. NATS stated a correction was implemented and systems were recovering. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander apologized for the disruption. Ryanair’s Neal McMahon criticized NATS, noting over 50 of its flights were cancelled, referencing a similar major system failure in August 2023 that led to nearly 2,000 cancellations.

With a significance score of 1.4, this news ranks in the top 40% of today's 33172 analyzed articles.

Get summaries of news with significance over 5.5 (usually ~10 stories per week). Read by 10,000+ subscribers:

Most significant articles on this story:

[2.0]

U.K. flight chaos: 400 cancellations after air traffic control failure (latimes.com)

Link Source [$]

[1.7]

UK flights resume after air traffic control failure (yle.fi)

Link Source (Iloko)

[1.6]

Ryanair calls for NATS CEO to quit after UK air traffic control failure delays 65,000 passengers (corporate.ryanair.com)

Link Source

[1.5]

Ryanair demands Nats CEO resign after UK flight chaos hits 65,000 passengers (dn.se)

<1h

Link Source (Swedish)

[1.5]

UK airports hit by flight disruptions after air traffic control glitch (ca.finance.yahoo.com)

Link Source

[1.5]

UK flight cancellations hit 200 after air traffic control fault (hosteltur.com)

Link Source (Spanish)

[1.5]

UK airports hit by air traffic control failure, over 200 flights cancelled (ilsole24ore.com)

Link Source (Italian)

[1.4]

UK air traffic control failure grounds hundreds of flights at Heathrow and Gatwick (actu.fr)

Link Source (French)

[1.4]

UK Air Traffic Fault Disrupts Flights at Major Airports (nettavisen.no)

Link Source (Swedish)

[1.4]

UK air traffic control fault delays flights at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted (khaleejtimes.com)

Link Source

[1.4]

UK airports hit by air traffic control outage (thestar.com)

Link Source [$]

[1.4]

Dublin Airport flights delayed by UK air traffic control outage (rte.ie)

Link Source

[1.4]

UK air traffic control fault cancels 200 flights at Heathrow and Gatwick (bbc.com)

Link Source

[1.3]

UK flights disrupted as 300 cancelled after air traffic control fault (ca.news.yahoo.com)

Link Source

[1.3]

UK air traffic control failure grounds flights at major airports (ilfattoquotidiano.it)

Link Source (Italian)

[1.3]

UK flight chaos: Nearly 300 flights cancelled after air traffic control fault (di.se)

Link Source (Swedish)

[1.2]

UK cancels over 350 flights after air traffic control glitch (news18.com)

<1h

Link Source

[1.2]

UK airports hit by air traffic control failure, disrupting flights (bbc.co.uk)

Link Source

[1.2]

UK flight cancellations reach nearly 300 after air traffic control glitch (firstpost.com)

Link Source

[1.2]

Nats says UK flight disruption recovery will take time (standard.co.uk)

Link Source

[1.1]

UK airports hit by air traffic control glitch disrupting hundreds of flights (thestar.com.my)

Link Source

[1.1]

UK flights cancelled after air traffic control technical fault (dailystar.co.uk)

Link Source

[1.1]

UK flights suspended and delayed after air traffic control fault hits Heathrow and Gatwick (realitatea.net)

Link Source (Romanian)

[1.1]

UK airports cancel nearly 300 flights after technical fault hits Heathrow and Manchester (hindustantimes.com)

Link Source

[1.0]

UK airports face departure delays after air traffic control fault (newsit.gr)

Link Source (Greek)

[0.8]

UK airports hit by air traffic control fault causing flight delays (dailystar.co.uk)

Link Source

[0.8]

Heathrow suspends all departures after technical fault (20min.ch)

Link Source (German)