Flights resume but disruption continues after NATS outage

Flights have resumed at UK airports following Tuesday’s major air traffic control outage, but passengers have been warned of further disruption as airlines work through the operational backlog.

More than 1,000 flights were cancelled during the hours-long shutdown, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded.

The disruption has continued into today (Wednesday 9 September) as aircraft and crews displaced by the outage have to be repositioned across airline networks.

Heathrow Airport has advised passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline before travelling to the airport, warning that schedules have changed following yesterday’s disruption.

“We are expecting knock-on impacts as aircraft and crew reposition,” Heathrow said, adding that it was working with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations.

Gatwick has also advised passengers to confirm their flight status before travelling.

Ryanair said around 150,000 of its passengers were affected on Tuesday, with more than 200 flights cancelled. British Airways said it cancelled or diverted 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

The recovery phase could prolong disruption beyond the period of the original outage, as airlines restore schedules and return aircraft and crews to their planned locations.

The incident has also increased scrutiny of the resilience of the UK’s air traffic control infrastructure.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander summoned NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to explain the failure and said she was seeking assurances that lessons would be learned and that systems supporting UK aviation were sufficiently resilient.

Rolfe apologised to passengers affected by the disruption and ruled out a cyberattack as the cause. He said the problem appeared to be different from previous NATS outages.

Simon McCulloch, Chief Commercial Officer at Staysure, also commented on the outage: "NATS has confirmed this isn't a cyber-attack, but recovery is expected to take time. Your airline should be your first port of call. Under UK261 regulations, in the event of a cancellation, you're entitled to a full refund or an alternative flight, and delays of more than three hours may also qualify for compensation."

"This kind of disruption is typically covered under standard travel insurance policies, for things like reasonable additional accommodation, transport costs, missed connections, certain expenses caused by a lengthy delay, and potentially cancellation/abandonment, depending on the policy wording. It's worth checking your policy's definition of 'travel delay', 'missed departure', 'abandonment', or 'travel disruption' as cover levels vary."

The latest failure follows a major NATS system outage in August 2023, when widespread cancellations cost airlines £100 million, and a radar-related technical problem that disrupted flights at major UK airports in July 2025.