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Nearly 1,100 flights cancelled after UK air traffic control glitch
Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted were among the airports affected by restrictions and delays
- PUBLISHED: Tue 8 Sept 2026, 7:19 PM UPDATED: Wed 9 Sept 2026, 12:22 AM
Almost 1,100 flights to and from UK airports were cancelled Tuesday due to what the country's air traffic control service called a technical issue, in the latest glitch to spark travel chaos.
Departing flights at major British airports were disrupted after air traffic control provider NATS experienced a technical issue, with Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted among the airports affected by restrictions and delays.
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A total of 1,055 flights to and from British airports had been axed by 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), according to the aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24.
"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," NATS said in a statement. "Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time," they added.
Heathrow, Britain's biggest hub, said it was working with NATS to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Edinburgh Airport said in a post on X that the issue might impact its operations. Ireland's Dublin airport said flights leaving and arriving from there were also being affected.
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"Recovery from today's system issue has taken longer than we had hoped," NATS later said on X. "Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights," it noted, adding "this is hugely frustrating and apologise unreservedly".
This is the latest problem to hit the country's air traffic control systems.
In 2024, Britain's aviation regulator said NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages after the automatic processing of flight plans had malfunctioned a year earlier, causing chaos across Britain's airports.
Airline bosses said it had cost them over £100 million ($135.49 million) in refunds and compensation.
In July last year, a radar-related technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system disrupted flights for over four hours at major airports in London and elsewhere, including Heathrow.