UK Air Traffic Glitch Grounds Over 100 Flights; Ryanair Demands NATS Chief’s Resignation

More than 100 flights were cancelled and many others delayed across the UK on Wednesday after a radar-related glitch in the country’s air traffic control system caused widespread disruption at major airports.

The technical fault, identified by the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), brought departures to a temporary halt at key hubs including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London City airports.

Although NATS managed to restore operations within 20 minutes by switching to a backup system, the ripple effects continued for hours—stranding thousands of passengers and triggering significant delays.

In a statement, NATS confirmed that systems were “fully operational” and that traffic was gradually returning to normal. The agency apologised for the inconvenience caused by the outage.

Low-cost carrier Ryanair was among the worst affected and lashed out at NATS for its handling of the disruption. CEO Neal McMahon slammed the agency’s leadership, calling the situation “outrageous” and demanded the resignation of NATS chief Martin Rolfe.

“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August 2023 system failure,” McMahon said, referencing a similar incident that sparked criticism over NATS’s crisis preparedness.

Airports and airlines have advised passengers to check with their carriers before travelling, as delays and recovery operations were expected to continue into the evening.