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Air traffic control outage causes widespread flight delays and cancellations at British airports including London Heathrow

An air traffic control outage caused significant travel disruption across the United Kingdom on Tuesday and Wednesday. The issue resulted in approximately 1,300 flight cancellations on Tuesday, with 177 flights canceled on Wednesday morning, primarily at London-Heathrow.

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NATS, the UK's leading air traffic control provider, confirmed the system issue was fixed but noted that recovery from the outage has taken longer than expected. The company apologized for the frustration caused by the backlog of and delays. Ryanair reported that 65,000 of its passengers were affected, leading to the airline to cancel more than 50 scheduled flights. Neal McMahon, the chief operating officer of Ryanair, called for the resignation of NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe. Rolfe defended the systems and apologized for the incident. UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander stated that she is seeking assurances that lessons will be learned from the failure. Airports including Gatwick and Stansted also reported delays, with international carriers such as Air India and Qatar Airways reporting diverted or canceled flights.

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