A technical failure at the NATS air traffic control centre in Prestwick, Scotland reduced air traffic capacity by approximately 60% on Monday, 21 September 2026. The disruption also lowered capacity for some transatlantic departures by around 40%, affecting flights between Britain, Europe and North America.
More than 20 EasyJet flights were cancelled on the same day due to the reduced control capacity. In total, at least 24 flights were cancelled across the affected UK airports. The disruption heavily impacted Scottish airports including Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as flights involving Northern Ireland and northern England. Additional delays have been reported
for numerous other services.
Other airlines operating in the region, notably British Airways and KLM, experienced operational impacts as a result of the control centre issues. NATS confirmed that airports south of Manchester remain broadly unaffected by the technical failure, with restrictions primarily affecting northern Scotland and northern England routes.
During the technical failure, some flight processing at the Prestwick centre had to be managed manually while engineers worked on resolving the problem. NATS personnel continue investigating the issue at Prestwick to restore full capacity as soon as possible.
NATS clarified that the Monday incident is unrelated to the major
UK air traffic control outage experienced earlier in the same month. Passengers with flights through Scottish or northern British airports were urged by officials to verify their flight status directly with their airline due to continuing cancellations and delays.
