Airlines have called for “action and accountability” over the UK’s air traffic control services after a technical issue led to flights being disrupted for the second time in a fortnight.
Dozens were cancelled and others severely delayed after a fault on Monday morning at National Air Traffic Services (Nats), this time at its second control centre at Prestwick in South Ayrshire.
The fault, predominantly affecting Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, was fixed by about ۱۰.۳۰am, but only after airlines including British Airways and easyJet were forced to make cancellations.
A Nats spokesperson said it had been “working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption”, and apologised for the disruption. They said the problem was “unrelated to the issue two weeks ago”.
Despite the relatively quick fix, at least ۲۰۰ flights in and out of UK airports were expected to be cancelled by the end of Monday, according to the analysts Cirium.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, posted on X just after ۱۰.۳۰am, notifying that the latest technical issue had been resolved.
She wrote: “I know this will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue. There may be some delays as things reset.”
The incident came less than two weeks after a serious problem at the Nats control centre in England disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers, and only three days after the company released an initial report that promised to “continually improve the critical service we provide”.
Nats said Monday’s incident had been caused by a connectivity issue at its Prestwick centre.
Among the stranded passengers at Glasgow were a bride and groom who had expected to fly to their Las Vegas wedding with family and friends. Their BA flight to Heathrow was cancelled, meaning they would miss their connection to the US on Monday, and they rebooked for Tuesday.
The bride-to-be, Barbara Ann Stoddart, said: “I’m completely stressed out. I have still to go to the county court in Vegas to go and get the marriage licence, and I’ve got to be there three days in advance … If there’s any hiccups I might not be getting married on Saturday now.”
The Civil Aviation Authority said it had reminded airlines of their responsibilities to look after passengers whose flights were delayed or cancelled, but that passengers were unlikely to receive compensation for delayed or cancelled flights.
“We consider that disruption caused by the technical issue at Nats Prestwick centre in Scotland on ۲۱ September is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.
“This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident,” a CAA spokesperson said.
Airlines called for action to address repeated failures, with Ryanair reiterating its calls for the Nats chief executive, Martin Rolfe, to resign.
EasyJet, one of the most-affected airlines on Monday, said the latest flight disruption “once again calls into question the resilience of Nats’s systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures”.
BA described it as “yet another technical fault with Nats” and said it was disappointing.
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Jet۲’s chief executive, Steve Heapy, said it was “simply not good enough for this critical national infrastructure to keep letting customers down”.
“What customers and airlines need now is action, accountability and proper resilience, and we need it urgently,” he said.
Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, said: “Just three days after Nats assured airlines and passengers that it had introduced robust ‘mitigation plans’, its flight data processing system has failed again.
“More than ۲۵,۰۰۰ Ryanair passengers have already suffered disruption, with more than ۱۴۰ Ryanair flights delayed.
“Enough is enough. Martin Rolfe should resign today.”
Rolfe, who was paid £۱.۴m last year including bonuses, has come under increasing pressure since the major outage on ۸ September, the third high-profile incident in just over three years. Rolfe apologised and said he took full responsibility, but Nats has denied that the incidents are related.
A “radar-related issue” in July ۲۰۲۵ a caused an air traffic control failure that disrupted the journeys of thousands of passengers and forced the cancellation of more than ۱۶۰ flights.
The biggest incident, in August ۲۰۲۳, affected more than ۷۰۰,۰۰۰ passengers when flights were grounded across the UK after a “rogue flight plan” sparked a system failure.
Alexander has commissioned the CAA to conduct an independent review of Nats and check the findings of its initial report into the ۸ September breakdown. She said the government still needed “to urgently understand why this issue was not discovered and fixed before it caused chaos”.
Andy Burnham, asked whether the head of Nats should be sacked, said Alexander would have to “get to the bottom” of the problems.
“These are clearly serious issues and they need to be fully investigated, and I know the transport secretary is taking these issues extremely seriously,” said the prime minister.
“Further issues today do cause even greater concern, but initially this is a matter for the transport secretary to get to the bottom of what is behind this and why there has been a recurrence.”
