UK Air Traffic Control Hit by Second Fault in Two Weeks as 25,000 Ryanair Passengers Face Delays

The UK's air traffic control system suffered a second significant fault in less than a fortnight on Monday, disrupting more than 25,000 Ryanair passengers and causing delays and cancellations across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.

Ryanair said more than 25,000 of its passengers were affected, with more than 140 of its flights delayed, and renewed its call for Martin Rolfe, chief executive of NATS, to resign.

NATS said the problem at its Prestwick air traffic control centre in Scotland was a 'connectivity issue with part of our systems network, specific to the operation in Scotland'. It said the fault had been fixed and that work was under way to remove the remaining restrictions.

Airports south of Manchester were 'broadly unaffected', it added, but flights heading north and departures from Scottish airports were delayed. NATS apologised and urged passengers to check their flight status with their airline.

Hundreds of Flights Cancelled Across the UK

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said at least 227 UK flights had been cancelled out of more than 6,000 scheduled. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast International were among the worst hit, with cancellations at around 10 per cent or more at several airports.

Cirium's data showed only about 30 per cent of flights left Belfast City on time, while Glasgow recorded 11 cancellations from 107 flights. easyJet was the most affected airline, with 47 cancellations.

Ryanair said flights to and from Dublin, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester were among those disrupted.

Peter Haydock, a construction project manager, told the Press Association his Birmingham to Edinburgh journey was delayed by four and a half hours, involving boarding, leaving the aircraft, two hours in the terminal and reboarding, before he missed a coach on arrival.

'A completely wasted day,' he said.

Airlines Step up Pressure on NATS

Ryanair said the failure came three days after NATS published a preliminary report into the 8 September incident, which said mitigation plans had been introduced to reduce the risk of a recurrence.

Ryanair said the latest failure involved the flight data processing system, while NATS said Monday's fault was unrelated to the software defect behind the 8 September disruption.

Neal McMahon, Ryanair's chief operations officer, said NATS had assured airlines and passengers three days earlier that it had introduced a robust mitigation plan, but that its flight data processing system had failed again.

He said Mr Rolfe had presided over 'repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system'.

easyJet said the latest disruption 'once again calls into question the resilience of NATS' systems'. Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, is considering Mr Rolfe's future, while Ryanair has called on her to remove him if he does not resign.

Background, Disruption and Passenger Rights

The disruption follows a series of faults at NATS. A failure in August 2023 affected more than 700,000 passengers, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, while airline industry figures estimated that the disruption cost carriers around £100 million.

A technical fault at its Swanwick centre in Hampshire in July 2025 also disrupted flights. The Civil Aviation Authority said passengers were unlikely to be entitled to compensation for the 21 September disruption because it was likely to be considered an 'extraordinary circumstance' under passenger rights rules.

Airlines must still provide care, including food, drink and hotel accommodation where required. The compensation position does not remove an airline's separate obligations to provide care to passengers affected by qualifying delays or cancellations.