Summer Holiday Travel Chaos: UK Flights Grounded After NATS Air Traffic Control System Failure

Overview

Thousands of passengers have been left stranded at airports and on runways this afternoon after a major air traffic control failure grounded all outbound flights from the UK.

The disruption, which began shortly after 2pm, affected major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, and Edinburgh, with travellers reporting delays lasting several hours.

What Happened?

The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) confirmed a technical issue at its Swanwick control centre had forced the grounding of all London area flights. Departures across the country were suspended as engineers scrambled to restore the system.

By 4.43pm, NATS announced the issue had been resolved but warned of ongoing delays as the backlog of flights is cleared.

“Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon,” NATS said.

“We are working closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. Our systems are fully operational and air traffic capacity is returning to normal.”

Passenger Frustration Mounts

Passengers have described scenes of chaos at airports and onboard planes. Some reported sitting on the tarmac for over 40 minutes, while others said flights were diverted to mainland Europe.

One passenger returning from Kos told the Daily Mail their flight had to divert to Brussels instead of Birmingham. Another reported a Heathrow-bound flight circling Ben Nevis as it was unable to land.

“Going nowhere as no departures from Heathrow for the last 40 minutes,” one traveller posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Apparently the radar isn’t working. The crew have been fantastic though.”

Airlines and Airports Respond

British Airways confirmed it had been forced to restrict Heathrow flights to 32 inbound and outbound per hour until 7.15pm, significantly below the normal 45 flights per hour.

The airline apologised, saying the outage was “entirely outside of our control” and was affecting the “vast majority” of its services.

Meanwhile, Gatwick Airport suspended all outbound flights during the incident and warned passengers to check with their airlines before travelling.

Ryanair Calls for Resignation

Ryanair’s chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, blasted NATS and called for the resignation of CEO Martin Rolfe:

“It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of NATS.

If NATS CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest outage, then UK transport minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to deliver urgent reform of NATS’ shambolic service.”

Long-Lasting Impact

The disruption comes almost two years after the August 2023 NATS outage, which grounded flights for days and caused an estimated £100 million in airline compensation costs.

Tonight, passengers are being warned of continued knock-on delays with Heathrow expecting disruption until at least 9:15pm and Gatwick until 8:40pm.

Advice: Travellers should contact their airline directly for the latest information before heading to the airport.