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Flights to and from UK impacted by air traffic control issue
Second major issue in September sees flights to and from several UK airports impacted
An air traffic control issue is affecting flights to and from several UK airports, for the second time this month.
The main airports impacted are in Scotland – particularly Glasgow – and Northern Ireland as well as in the north of England (including Manchester and Newcastle).
Some disruption to airports in the south including Bristol and London City have been reported.
At around 12:00, London Gatwick and London Luton also reported delays to some flights, but these were mainly linked to domestic routes to airports impacted in the north.
Anyone flying to or from the UK should keep up with information about their flight from reliable channels, including airport and airline websites and smartphone applications.
A technical defect at a control centre in Prestwick (Scotland) is to blame, said the UK National Air Traffic Services (Nats).
The issue was fixed just after 11:00 said the service, however delays at many airports are set to continue into the afternoon.
It is the second major air traffic control issue to hit the UK in less than a month, after nearly 2,000 flights were suspended following a software issue on September 8.
As of midday, 35 flights departing the UK and 37 scheduled to arrive in the UK have been cancelled, with several others of both types delayed.
Air traffic control under fire
The delays have been caused by “a connectivity issue with part of our systems network, specific to the operation in Scotland. It is nothing to do with the problem we had earlier this month,” said Nats in a statement this morning.
“To maintain safety, air traffic regulations were applied to manage traffic demand while our engineers investigated.”
The second day of chaos in less than a month has led to backlash against the service, including from airlines.
Ryanair's chief operations officer, Neal McMahon said Nats had failed to deliver “either a reliable system or an effective back-up,” following issues in August 2023 and the software issue earlier this month.
He called on Nats CEO Martin Rolfe to step down or be replaced: “How many times must UK passengers suffer disruption before Martin Rolfe is replaced by somebody competent?”
