Overview
- A fault in the UK air navigation service NATS's flight‑data processing system stopped many departures on Tuesday and forced widespread cancellations and long waits at major airports.
- Flight tracking data showed about 1,055 cancelled flights by evening with roughly 65,000 passengers affected, and carriers including British Airways and Ryanair reported scores of disrupted services.
- Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh were among the airports hit and routes to or from Dublin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Munich and Zurich also saw knock‑on cancellations.
- NATS confirmed late Tuesday that the software problem was fixed and said normal services are resuming, but it warned that the backlog will take days to clear and passengers should check with airlines for rebooking.
- The incident echoes major UK air‑traffic failures in 2023 and a radar outage last year and raises renewed scrutiny of NATS contingency planning because its flight‑data system centrally processes flight plans and departure sequencing.