Air traffic control issue disrupts departing flights at major UK airports

LONDON, Sept 8 — Some departing flights at major British airports were disrupted on ​Tuesday after air traffic control provider NATS experienced a technical issue, with Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted among ‌the airports affected by restrictions and delays.

"We have identified that the issue was ⁠in our flight processing system. ​Our engineers are on site ⁠and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as ‌possible," NATS said ‌in a statement.

"Flights are still departing and airspace is ⁠open, but recovery will take some ⁠time."

Heathrow, Britain's biggest hub, said it was working with NATS to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

Edinburgh Airport said in a post on X that the issue might impact its operations. Ireland's Dublin airport said flights leaving ‌and arriving from there were also being ​affected.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said on social media that arrivals and departures were being heavily regulated at airports in the London flight information region because of the issue.

This is the latest problem to hit the country's air traffic control systems.

In 2024, Britain's aviation regulator said NATS needed to review ​its contingency plans for outages after the automatic processing of flight ‌plans had malfunctioned ‌a ⁠year earlier, causing chaos across Britain's airports.

Airline bosses said it had cost them over £100 million ($135.49 million) in refunds and compensation.

In July last year, a radar-related technical issue in Britain's air traffic ‌control system disrupted flights ​for over four hours at major ‌airports in London and ⁠elsewhere, including ​Heathrow.

($1 = 0.7381 pounds)

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; Editing by Alison Williams and ​William James)

Related topics