UK air traffic control suffers second outage in two weeks, disrupting 25,000 passengers

September 21, 2026 at 06:28 PM1 min

This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.

A technical fault at the NATS air traffic control centre in Prestwick, Scotland, on 21 September caused dozens of flight cancellations and delays across the UK. The outage affected airports in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern England, including Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast. Engineers resolved the fault, but delays continued as systems returned to normal operation.

Key Facts

The outage occurred at the NATS centre in Prestwick, Scotland, on 21 September.
At least 35 flights were cancelled and over 140 Ryanair departures were delayed, affecting more than 25,000 passengers.
Cirium reported 24 cancelled flights, while hundreds of departures were delayed.
The previous outage on 8 September led to more than 2,000 flight cancellations and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Ryanair renewed its call for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to be dismissed.

Outage Impact

The technical fault disrupted air traffic across Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern England. Delays were reported at Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast airports, with warnings issued for London Gatwick and London City. Heathrow, Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Leeds Bradford airports also experienced disruptions. EasyJet cancelled some flights, and British Airways warned customers of possible schedule changes.

Airline and Official Response

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander acknowledged passenger frustration and said delays were possible while systems returned to normal. Ryanair demanded the dismissal of NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe. EasyJet said the repeated failures raised questions about the reliability of air traffic control systems. NATS stated the current fault was unrelated to the 8 September outage.

Previous Outage

On 8 September, a system failure caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations in the UK. Hundreds of thousands of passengers were unable to depart on time during that incident. The cause of the earlier disruption was identified as a system failure.