A technical fault at Nats, the UK's main air traffic control provider, has forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights over two days. The government says it still backs Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe despite airline demands for his removal, and has ordered a full investigation due back within a week. It is the third such Nats failure in three years.
A technical glitch at Nats has forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights to and from UK airports over the last two days, with disruption expected to continue into Wednesday. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham were the worst-hit airports, and airports in Ireland also reported disruption.
Cancellations mount as backlog builds
Cirium data show 903 departures and 843 arrivals were disrupted on Tuesday, when 30.10% of the day's 5,800 scheduled flights were cancelled or failed to fly. A further 291 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, about 5% of the 5,869 scheduled compared with a normal rate of 1-2%. Even once the underlying fault is fixed, backlogs mean the disruption is likely to persist for days.
Government still backs Nats boss
Downing Street said the government retains confidence in Rolfe, despite calls from rival airline bosses for him to resign. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander summoned Rolfe on Wednesday and ordered a full investigation, due to report back within a week.
According to Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary: "Martin Rolfe's position as NATS CEO is untenable." Ryanair has called on Alexander to sack him over the failure.
Third failure in three years
Nats, which is 49% owned by the government, has suffered technical failures three times in as many years, following outages in 2023 and 2025. The 2023 failure, a computer shutdown over the August bank holiday weekend, disrupted 700,000 passengers. The 2025 outage caused 150 cancellations, and Rolfe was paid £1.4 million for the year to 31 March, including a £343,000 bonus.
Rolfe said the latest fault lay in Nats' flight data processing system, and was not the same system that failed in 2023. Nats separately said the fault was not the same issue as the 2023 incident.
Sources: The Guardian, BBC News
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
