UK airports hit by air traffic control glitch disrupting hundreds of flights

thestar.com.my — September 8, 2026 at 05:01 PM UTC

A technical issue at air traffic control provider NATS disrupted hundreds of departing flights at major UK airports on Tuesday, causing cancellations and delays at hubs including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted. NATS identified the problem in its flight processing system and said engineers were working to restore normal operations. The disruption led to about 100 flight cancellations and 367 delays at Heathrow, with 250 delays at Gatwick, according to FlightAware data. Edinburgh, Dublin, Luton, Birmingham, Aberdeen, and Glasgow airports also reported impacts, with airlines like British Airways and EasyJet confirming disruption to their services. The incident follows previous NATS outages, including a 2024 regulator review after a flight plan processing malfunction cost airlines over £100 million, and a radar-related issue in July last year that disrupted flights for over four hours.

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