Nats system fault forces cancellation of over two thousand flights
Developing story first seen 49 minutes ago
The UK experienced widespread flight disruption for a third consecutive day following a technical fault at National Air Traffic Services (NATS). The system outage, which began on Tuesday, forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights across the country's airports, impacting an estimated 250,000 passengers. Heathrow Airport suffered the most severe impact, recording 28 cancellations on the reporting day alone, with dozens more flights scrapped across other major hubs as the crisis persisted.
Forecasters expected the disruption to resolve by Thursday, with normal operations anticipated to resume thereafter. The extended outage prompted mounting pressure on NATS leadership, particularly chief executive Martin Rolfe, with calls intensifying for his resignation. Meanwhile, the government initiated its response to the crisis, addressing both immediate passenger impacts and the underlying systems failures that allowed the disruption to extend over multiple days.
- NATS technical fault triggers cancellation of 2,000+ UK flights, stranding approximately 250,000 passengers over three days
- Heathrow and other major airports severely affected; disruption expected to clear by Thursday
- NATS chief executive faces resignation calls amid government response to the crisis
Coverage
- Daily Mail — Passengers face more than 50 further cancellations as flight disruption enters third day and calls grow for air traffic control boss to resign
- The Guardian — UK flight disruption expected to clear; Primark to start offering home delivery in UK – business live
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