More than 300,000 passengers face travel disruption after a technical fault in National Air Traffic Services' (NATS) flight processing system caused widespread cancellations and delays at UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has warned that affected passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation, as the incident is likely to be classed as an "extraordinary circumstance" under passenger rights rules, even though airlines remain obliged to look after stranded customers.

British Airways alone cancelled almost 550 flights, affecting more than 85,000 passengers, and said the disruption was "entirely out of our control". More than 1,000 flights were disrupted in total, with Cirium reporting over 300 further cancellations the following day, taking the two-day total past 2,000. NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe, who faced calls to resign and was branded an "overpaid failure" after a similar failure last year, ruled out a cyber attack, promised a "thorough investigation", and met Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who rejected his suggestion that such incidents were "inevitable".