Nats Draws Fire After 200 Flights Cancelled in Second UK ATC Glitch This Month
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 21
Nats Draws Fire After 200 Flights Cancelled in Second UK ATC Glitch This Month
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 21
Summary
At least 200 flights were cancelled or did not operate by 13:45 BST after a connectivity failure at Nats' Prestwick control centre disrupted traffic across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.
Nats said the underlying issue had been resolved and operations were back at full capacity, but officials warned knock-on delays would continue as airlines worked to recover schedules.
EasyJet cancelled 47 of 670 departures, while Ryanair said 140 of its flights and 25,000 passengers were hit, prompting carriers to question Nats' resilience and leadership.
The outage was Nats' second significant failure in less than two weeks, after a separate Swanwick software defect earlier in September led to about 2,000 flight cancellations and intensified pressure on chief Martin Rolfe.