New air traffic control failure delays flights at British airports

• Flights at Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast airports were delayed due to an air traffic control failure at NATS' Prestwick centre in Scotland.
• The issue on Sept 21 is separate from a software defect two weeks earlier that caused 2,000 flight cancellations and costly disruptions.
• Airlines like easyJet and British Airways warned customers of delays, with easyJet criticising NATS’ system resilience and calling for stronger preventive measures.

LONDON – Flights at several British airports were delayed on Sept 21 owing to an air traffic control failure, Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said, less than two weeks after a separate issue halted flights across the country.

Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast airports were experiencing delays, which the air traffic control provider said was related to an issue at its Prestwick centre in Scotland.

London’s Gatwick and City Airports said there would be some disruption.

Airline easyJet said it had cancelled some flights, while British Airways warned its customers that they were likely to experience disruption on Sept 21.

New issue behind delays

NATS said the delays on Sept 21 were “unrelated to the issue two weeks ago”, when around 2,000 flights were cancelled owing to a software defect.

“Airports south of Manchester are broadly unaffected, however flights heading north and flights departing Scottish airports are currently subject to some delay,” the air traffic control provider said in a statement.

A previous outage in August 2023 cost airlines £100 million (S$170.7 million) and caused travel chaos. Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, has been calling for NATS chief executive officer Martin Rolfe to step down.

Easyjet said the disruption on Sept 21, which did not appear to be as severe as the failure two weeks earlier that delayed hundreds of thousands of people, underlined the weakness in the air traffic operator’s systems.

“This, once again, calls into question the resilience of NATS’ systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures,” easyJet said. REUTERS