Hundreds of flights delayed, cancelled after UK air traffic control glitch

Air traffic control provider NATS under scrutiny after technical fault disrupts UK air traffic.Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026Hundreds of flights at major United Kingdom airports, including London’s Heathrow and Gatwick, have been cancelled and hundreds more delayed because of a technical fault at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS).The IT malfunction on Tuesday happened three years after a flight-plan processing failure at NATS caused even more widespread disruption.Recommended Stories list of 2 itemslist 1 of 2UK air traffic issue fixed but flights remain affectedlist 2 of 2Hundreds of UK flights disrupted by air traffic control glitchend of listIn a post on X, NATS apologised to frustrated passengers in departure halls across the UK and said a problem with its flight data processing system had been fixed.“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 said on X.Cancellations and DelaysAirlines called for the resignation of Martin Rolfe, the CEO of NATS, questioned whether the UK’s air traffic control system was ⁠fit for...