U.K. flight chaos: 400 cancellations after air traffic control failure

latimes.com [$] — September 8, 2026 at 06:01 PM UTC

More than 400 flights to and from U.K. airports were canceled on Tuesday due to a technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system, causing widespread travel disruption. The National Air Traffic Services identified a problem in its flight processing system and said engineers were working urgently on a fix, which has since been implemented and the system is starting to recover. Affected airports included Heathrow, Stansted, and City in London, plus Manchester, Birmingham, and Scottish airports, with airlines such as British Airways, EasyJet, KLM, and Lufthansa impacted. EasyJet reported delays across Europe, and passengers complained on social media about being stuck on tarmacs and poor communication from airlines. Arriving flights appeared unaffected, and the cause of the technical problem was not immediately clear.

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