Major UK air traffic control failure disrupts flights: Heathrow, Manchester hit; EasyJet, British Airways warn of delays

Major UK airports faced widespread flight disruption on Tuesday after a technical failure at the country's air traffic control provider affected the processing of flight plans. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted were among the airports reporting delays and cancellations, while airlines including EasyJet and British Airways warned passengers of disruption.The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which manages air traffic control across the UK, said the problem was linked to its flight processing system.

Engineers were working to restore normal operations, although the disruption was expected to take time to clear. “We have identified that the issue was in our flight processing system. Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible,” NATS said in a statement.“ Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time.” Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted among UK airports hitThe disruption affected departures at several major airports, with passengers advised to check directly with their airlines before travelling.Heathrow, the UK's largest airport, said it was working with NATS to resolve the problem.

Flight-tracking platform Flightradar24 said arrivals and departures were being regulated at airports within the London flight information region because of the technical issue.Heathrow had recorded about 100 cancellations and 367 delays, according to FlightAware data. Gatwick had around 250 delayed flights, representing about 31% of its scheduled traffic, the data showed.Airports in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow also reported disruption.

London Luton was among the other airports affected.Dublin Airport said some flights arriving from and departing for the UK were also facing delays.EasyJet and British Airways warn passengersBritish Airways said its flights were being disrupted because of the air traffic control problem.“ This is entirely out of our control and we're in touch with our customers whilst our teams work to get them on their way as quickly as possible,” the airline said in a statement.EasyJet said the NATS issue was causing delays to flights across Europe, with some services unable to operate.Ryanair, Wizz Air and Virgin Atlantic were not immediately available for comment.While departures were significantly affected, there was no immediate indication that arriving flights were facing the same level of disruption across the network.What caused the UK air traffic control disruption?

NATS said the technical problem occurred within its flight processing system, but it did not immediately provide details on what triggered the failure.The system is used to process flight plans, making its disruption significant for airlines and airports even though UK airspace remained open.NATS said its engineers were working urgently on the problem and that operations were continuing, although the network would need time to recover from the backlog created by the disruption.UK aviation has faced previous air traffic control failuresTuesday's disruption comes after other technical problems have affected Britain's aviation network in recent years.In 2024, the UK's aviation regulator said NATS needed to review its contingency arrangements following an earlier failure involving the automatic processing of flight plans.

That incident caused widespread disruption at airports across Britain.Airline executives estimated that the 2023 outage cost the industry more than £100 million in refunds and compensation.A separate radar-related technical problem in July 2025 disrupted flights for more than four hours at major London airports, including Heathrow.The latest failure has once again placed the reliability of Britain's air traffic control infrastructure under scrutiny as airports work to clear delays and airlines attempt to restore normal schedules.