National Air Traffic Services (NATS) experienced a second major air traffic control system failure on 21 September 2026, originating at its Prestwick control centre in Scotland. The technical issue caused cancellations affecting more than 200 flights across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, with Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast airports among the locations impacted. Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported 227 flight cancellations on that day.
Earlier in the month on 8 September 2026, a separate failure at NATS led to nearly 2,100 flight cancellations across UK airports. British Airways cancelled almost 550 flights during that outage, impacting over 85,000 passengers. Heathrow
was among the airports facing significant disruption. The fault was linked to a software defect concerning the allocation of codes to aircraft, according to preliminary investigations reported by The Independent.
Following the 21 September outage, British Airways, easyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair raised concerns publicly. Ryanair stated that more than 25,000 of its passengers were affected by the latest service failure and called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign. The disruption led to delays and cancellations that cascaded through other UK airports.
NATS confirmed the 21 September failure at Prestwick was caused by a technical problem unrelated to the
software defect identified in the 8 September incident. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) indicated the 21 September disruption likely qualifies as “extraordinary circumstances,” which generally exempts airlines from statutory compensation to passengers but still requires care provisions and rerouting obligations.
The cancellations on 21 September triggered travel disruptions beyond aviation alone. Impacts on aircraft positioning, crew operating hours, and airport slot availability complicated the recovery process for airlines. Additionally, multi-sector travel itineraries involving hotels, transfers, tours and cruises faced unraveling, affecting the broader travel trade and group bookings in corporate and sports sectors.
In response to the initial 8
September failure, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander commissioned an independent CAA review. The recurrence of a second failure within two weeks has intensified scrutiny of NATS’ system resilience and contingency planning. Industry focus remains on how swiftly confidence in the operational stability of the UK aviation network can be restored.
