UK hit by fresh air traffic outage at Scotland centre, flights cancelled

Cancelled flights are pictured on an electronic check-in display board at Terminal 3 of London Heathrow airport, west of London in this file picture dated September 8, 2026, following major disruption due an issue affecting the NATS air traffic control systems. UK flights faced fresh disruption Monday, with some cancelled due to a technical issue at the nation’s air traffic control agency — the second such outage in two weeks. — AFP pic

First Published: Monday, 21 Sep 2026 8:24 PM MYT

LONDON, Sept 21 — UK flights faced fresh disruption Monday, with some cancelled due to a technical issue at the nation’s air traffic control agency — the second such outage in two weeks.

The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), plagued by several incidents in recent years, apologised for the latest incident at a centre in Scotland that has since been fixed.

“We are working with airports and airlines to... minimise any further disruption,” NATS said in a statement.

It followed an outage on September 8 and 9, when a software glitch caused more than 2,000 UK flight cancellations and numerous delays, affecting more than 330,000 passengers.

“The issue at our Prestwick centre in Scotland... is unrelated to the issue two weeks ago,” said a NATS spokesperson.

In its latest update, aviation analytics firm Cirium said 72 out of more than 6,000 flights to or from the UK had been cancelled.

“If this were the end of the day... this level of cancellations is close to normal — around one per cent,” it noted in a statement.

“However, as it’s early in the day, we anticipate that operational performance will degrade quickly.”

It added that while Glasgow and Belfast had experienced “high cancellations... London-area airports are not particularly impacted”.

Transport minister Heidi Alexander acknowledged that the new incident, which she referred to on X as an “IT issue”, “will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue”.

Irish airline Ryanair once more called for the resignation of NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe — who received Downing Street’s backing following the incident earlier this month.

Europe’s biggest carrier by passenger numbers said more than 140 Ryanair flights had been delayed, leaving over 25,000 passengers facing delays.

The travel chaos earlier this month followed a technical glitch in July 2025 that saw scores of flights to and from the UK cancelled, prompting anger from airline chiefs.

Britain suffered its worst air systems failure in years in 2023, with more than 700,000 passengers affected after hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled.

NATS has operated under a public-private partnership model since 2001. The government holds a 49-percent stake, as well as a “golden share” enabling it to intervene in strategic decisions.

The remainder is held primarily by a consortium of airlines. — AFP