E-Paper
Several flights in UK delayed due to fresh air traffic control failure; Manchester, Glasgow among airports affected
NATS confirmed that the issue was related to a failure at its Prestwick centre in Scotland.
Prefer HTon Google
Flights at several airports in the United Kingdom were affected following a fresh air traffic control failure on Monday, Britain's NATS (National Air Traffic Services) air traffic control provider said. This comes less than two weeks after flights across the country were halted following a separate issue.
Nearly 200 flights faced delays in the country, while a dozen British Airways and 50 EasyJet flights were cancelled following the disruption.
Flights in and out of Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast airports were impacted, Reuters news agency reported, with NATS confirming that the issue was related to a failure at its Prestwick centre in Scotland.
The air traffic control provider later stated that the technical issue had been fixed. “We are working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption,” it said.
What was the issue? Which airports were affected?
NATS, in a statement, said they experienced a “technical issue” at their Prestwick centre in Scotland early Monday morning (local time). “To maintain safety, air traffic regulations were applied to manage traffic demand while our engineers investigated,” BBC cited NATS as saying.
However, the statement clarified that this was a “connectivity issue”with part of their systems network, and had nothing to do with the flight delays across UK earlier this month.
Airports across the UK reported varying degrees of disruption on Monday, with Glasgow and Aberdeen airports “experiencing delays”, according to the operator of both airports, AviAlliance. The issue caused some delays at Manchester and Newcastle airports.
Bristol and London City airports also experienced some disruptions, with Belfast City also warning of delays, BBC reported.
What did UK transport secretary say?
UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander said engineers had “fixed the problem and systems are resuming”. “I know this will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue,” the transport secretary said.
"There may be some delays as things reset. Please check with your airline for updates," Alexander said in a post on X.
Previous UK tech glitch affected over 2,000 flights
A technical failure in UK’s air traffic control system had led to the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights over two days earlier this month. Operations at 15 airports were disrupted, including Heathrow, and stranding passengers on Indian carriers’ London routes.
NATS, which operates the UK system, had then attributed the disruption to a problem in its flight processing system and said the original fault was resolved later.
