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Nats technical glitch cancels at least 600 flights in the UK

The disruption began around 1pm and led to near four hours before Nats restarted its flight processing system, with effects running into Wednesday.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Europe

Hundreds of thousands of air passengers across the UK faced delays and cancellations after another air traffic control technical glitch grounded flights, with airlines calling for changes after repeated incidents. The disruption was linked to Nats, the air traffic services provider, which said it was addressing the issue after it began at about 1pm.

By late Tuesday afternoon, at least 600 flights in and out of the UK were reported cancelled, affecting departing operations at major airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, and spreading to incoming flights across southern England. Nats identified and implemented a fix to restart its flight processing system nearly four hours later, but many flights scheduled to depart from London airports had not yet taken off.

Cancellations and delays continued into Tuesday evening. British Airways said the disruption would affect operations through Wednesday at least, and passengers were offered free rebooking until Friday, while Ryanair said more than 65,000 passengers were delayed and 50 flights cancelled.

EasyJet said the knock-on effects reached flights across Europe. Eurocontrol reported that some inbound flights were being held at airports abroad, and disruption was expected to last until the evening, with FlightRadar24 showing by 5pm that easyJet had 137 cancellations, British Airways 111, KLM 26, Eurowings 22, and Ryanair 21.

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