Over 1,000 Flights Cancelled in UK Following Air Traffic Control Technical Failure

LONDON, Sept 9 — More than 1,000 flights were cancelled across UK airports on Tuesday following a major technical failure in the flight processing system at Britain’s air traffic control service center.

The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) confirmed that an equipment failure at its headquarters in Swanwick, near Southampton, caused widespread disruptions to flight departures and arrivals across major hubs, including London, Manchester, and Birmingham airports.

According to flight-tracking platform FlightRadar24, over 1,000 flights were grounded as a result of the system outage.

Among those affected was English Premier League side Arsenal, whose travel to Naples for their opening UEFA Champions League match against SSC Napoli was delayed, forcing the team to extend their stay at their training ground before departing late in the evening.

The disruption drew sharp criticism from airline operators. Ryanair Chief Operations Officer Neal McMahon publicly criticized NATS Chief Executive Officer Martin Rolfe over the outage, citing frustration with recurring UK air traffic control system failures.

In a subsequent update, NATS announced that the technical issue had been resolved and normal operations had resumed, though recovery efforts took longer than initially anticipated.

“Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” NATS said in a statement.

–NMT