A technical issue that affected air traffic control services at many UK airports, resulting in the cancellation of hundreds of flights, has been “resolved”, according to the provider.
Dozens of flights in and out of Dublin Airport were affected, with airport operator DAA saying airlines had cancelled 43 outbound and 30 inbound flights on Tuesday.
Nats, which provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports, said its recovery from the technical issue, which forced the cancellation of more than 400 flights, had “taken longer than we had hoped” but is “resolved”.
“We are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” it said in a statement at 7.30pm. “We are truly sorry for the ongoing flight disruption. We know this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly. Passengers should continue to check with their airline.”
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Tens of thousands of passengers faced disruption as a result of the outage, which had led to about 425 flights to and from UK airports being cancelled as of 5pm. Airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh and Stansted were impacted.
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights.
British Airways said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights on Tuesday which had impacted “tens of thousands of customers”.
ℹ️ Technical issue
— NATS (@NATS) September 8, 2026
We have identified that the issue was in our flight processing system. Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible. We recognise the ongoing disruption to travel, for which we sincerely apologise. (1/3) https://t.co/T9tF7j31e1
Budget airline EasyJet said some of its flights were “unable to operate” following the issue which was causing delays to flights across Europe.
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In a post on X, UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job” following the disruption. She said she gave her “huge thanks” for those working to “get people moving”.
Nats chief executive officer Martin Rolfe, who was asked on Sky News whether he accepted responsibility for the incident which caused chaos for so many passengers, said: “I always accept full responsibility.”
He said: “I am the CEO of a piece of critical infrastructure, so it is my job to take responsibility for that. What I absolutely take responsibility for is keeping people safe and delivering the best service we possibly can on a day like today.
“You will understand my focus is entirely about how we actually resolve this issue, get things back to normal, help our airlines, our airport customers and the travelling public.”
Neal McMahon, Ryanair chief operating officer, called on Rolfe to resign, saying: “How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure Nats CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?
“Over three years after Nats’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable ATC (air traffic control) delays of up to eight hours today due a critical Nats ATC system failing.”
Travel journalist Simon Calder said the knock-on effects on Wednesday are “going to be horrible”.
He told Sky News: “There are going to be dozens of cancellations in the morning of flights coming into Heathrow because, basically, the flights didn’t go out tonight.”
Heathrow suspended arrivals from 8pm for the rest of the day on Tuesday “to ensure the safety of our passengers and colleagues”. Additional reporting: PA
