A technical failure at NATS disrupted departing flights across the UK on 8 September, with cancellations and delays spilling into Wednesday and affecting business aviation alongside scheduled services at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted. Reuters reported about 1,300 flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on Tuesday, with another 177 cancellations already logged for Wednesday, while later tracking data put the total higher as the network worked through the backlog.
NATS identified the problem in its flight processing system and put a fix in place, after which operations began recovering. Even so, knock-on effects spread across the domestic network and into Ireland and other European connections, reflecting the scale of disruption at a peak hub level. The incident renewed scrutiny of the resilience of UK air traffic control after a series of large-scale interruptions, with airlines warning that schedules would take time to normalise as aircraft and crews were repositioned.