A technical issue at Britain’s air traffic controllers led to flight disruptions at major airports in London and other parts of the country on Wednesday. However, the problem has since been resolved, and departures are now resuming. National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the UK’s air traffic control provider, stated in a post on X, “Our systems are fully operational and air traffic capacity is returning to normal.”
“Departures at all airports have resumed and we are working with affected airlines and airports to safely clear the backlog. We apologize to everyone affected by this issue.”
The outage, which NATS had announced 20 minutes prior, impacted Heathrow Airport, Britain’s largest and Europe’s busiest airport. An airport spokesperson confirmed, “Flights at Heathrow have resumed following a technical issue at the NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre. We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling.”
Gatwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport also reported that their operations were resuming. London City Airport had similarly experienced disruptions earlier. The exact duration of the outage was not immediately clear.
This incident follows a similar disruption in August 2023, when flights across Britain were affected due to a malfunction in the automatic processing of flight plans. Last year, Britain’s aviation regulator indicated that NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages in the wake of that incident, which airline executives estimated cost them over 100 million pounds ($133 million) in refunds and compensation.
