Air traffic control issue disrupts departing flights at major UK airports

By Sam Tabahriti

LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Hundreds of departing flights from major British airports were disrupted on Tuesday after air traffic control provider NATS experienced a technical issue, with Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted among the hubs affected by cancellations and delays.

"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."

Heathrow, Britain's biggest hub, said it was working with NATS on solving the problem.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said on social media that arrivals and departures were being regulated at airports in the London flight information region because of the issue.

HUNDREDS OF FLIGHTS DELAYED AND MANY CANCELLED

About 100 flights have been cancelled at Heathrow and 367 have been delayed, according to data on flight-tracking platform FlightAware. Some 250 flights have been delayed at Gatwick, about 31% of the total, the data showed.

Edinburgh Airport said in a post on X that the issue might affect its operations. Ireland's Dublin airport said flights leaving and arriving from there were also being disrupted.

Other airports reporting delays or cancellations included London's Luton Airport and Birmingham Airport, as well as Aberdeen and Glasgow. Dublin Airport said some flights arriving to and departing from there would be subject to delays.

British Airways said it was experiencing disruption to flights because of the issue.

"This is entirely out of our control and we're in touch with our customers whilst our teams work to get them on their way as quickly as possible," the airline said in a statement.

EasyJet said the issue was causing delays across Europe.

Ryanair, Wizz Air and Virgin Atlantic were not immediately available for comment.

Tuesday's delays follow previous incidents that caused severe disruption.

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.

($1 = 0.7381 pounds)

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti, Josephine Mason and Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Alison Williams, William James and Barbara Lewis)