Airlines criticise Nats after ‘technical issue’ leads to cancellations and delays flights

Flights to and from the UK faced cancellations and delays yesterday after National Air Traffic Services (Nats) reported a “technical issue” at its Swanwick air traffic control centre.

Nats faced a mounting industry backlash after announcing the “technical error” at 4.05pm, before stating that engineers had restored the affected system 20 minutes later. 

It added: “We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area.

“We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.”

A total of 87 departures were cancelled across all UK airports, equating to 3% of all departures, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

 

The disruption also led to 75 inbound flights being cancelled, equating to 3% of all arrivals.

 

A number of inbound flights to UK airports were also diverted to European cities.

 

Heathrow saw the highest number of cancellations with a total of 30 departures and 20 arrivals.

 

Many knock-on delays are expected ahead of the weekend.

 

Advantage Travel Partnership chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said said last night: “While the entire London airspace being closed was a disaster for the travel industry and consumers, fortunately the incident was resolved relatively quickly so while we’d advise consumers not to panic, there has been a knock-on effect with flight delays so we’d advise those who are due to fly this evening or tomorrow check with their airline or travel agent for the latest updates.

 

“Airlines will be working hard today to make sure that they can resume operations as soon as possible. 

 

“It is the summer holidays so airports are likely to be incredibly busy so the impact will be felt by many.”

 

Gatwick had said there were no departures operating in an update at 4.19pm on Wednesday, adding that inbound flights were still landing.

Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham were among the other airports reporting flight disruption and encouraging travellers to check with airlines for updates.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “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. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

A Gatwick spokesperson said there would be “some delays” while operations resumed, adding: “Passengers should check the status of their flights with their airline.”

Cirium calculated that a total of 3,080 departures were scheduled in the UK on Wednesday, equating to more than 577,000 seats.

 

Jet2 confirmed that some flights on Wednesday evening would experience delays following the suspension of UK air traffic control "caused by an issue at one of the air traffic control centres".

 

“This issue has now been resolved and we are working to resume normal operations as soon as possible,” the airline added.

 

EasyJet chief operating officer David Morgan reportedly said: "It’s extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel.

 

"We will want to understand from Nats what steps they are taking to ensure issues don’t continue."

 

Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon repeated the budget airline’s call from previous periods of ATC disruption for the head of Nats, Martin Rolfe, to stand down.  

 

McMahon said: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of NATS. 

 

“Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers travel plans have been disrupted. 

 

"It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August ’23 Nats system outage and passengers continue to suffer.

 

“If Nats CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK transport minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to deliver urgent reform of Nats’s shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent Nats failures.”