Thursday, September 10th 2026 - 06:55 UTC
The disruption affected around fifteen airports, hitting Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham hardest, and also reaching Stansted, Luton, London City and Edinburgh
A technical failure in the flight data processing system of Britain's air traffic control provider forced the cancellation of close to a thousand flights on Tuesday and triggered a further wave of cancellations on Wednesday, in the biggest disruption to UK air traffic since 2023.
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) reported the problem at 1:46 p.m. local time from its control center in Swanwick, Hampshire, and applied a fix at around 4:40 p.m. While the fault persisted, controllers sharply reduced the number of takeoffs and landings allowed. Aviation analytics firm Cirium counted more than 1,750 cancellations to or from UK airports on Tuesday and at least 291 on Wednesday, figures higher than estimates from other industry sources, which put the first day at around a thousand.
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe told the BBC he does not believe the episode was caused by a cyber attack and announced a full investigation. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander also ruled out that possibility. NATS has not disclosed the specific technical trigger. “We know this is hugely frustrating and we apologize unreservedly,” the organization said, acknowledging that recovery took longer than expected.
