UK skies reopen after massive air traffic outage cancels more than 2,000 flights

Airline operations across the UK have reportedly resumed following an air traffic control failure that cancelled over 2,000 flights and left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded at airports throughout the country. British airports restarted operations on Wednesday, September 9, after the hours-long shutdown a day earlier. London-based aviation data and analytics company, Cirium, reported that around 1,750 flights were cancelled Tuesday, September 8. The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), UK’s air traffic control body, reported that the departure disruption was caused by a “technical issue” in its flight processing system. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Birmingham experienced the most severe delays. Reports said more than 290 further flights were cancelled on Wednesday. The first day saw 30 percent of departures grounded. Cirium revealed that the figure fell to five percent the following day. Martin Rolfe, NATS CEO, apologized to the travelers affected by the reported “IT failure”. However, Yvonne Moynihan, Wizz Air UK managing director, and Neal McMahon, Ryanair COO, have both called on Rolfe to resign over the recurring technical issues. UK flights come to a halt The issue began Tuesday following a technical problem at NATS, the company in charge of Britain’s air traffic control system. The failure led to the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers.According to the media, Ryanair was among the hardest-hit carriers. The airline said approximately 150,000 of its passengers were affected and that it canceled more than 200 flights. British Airways, meanwhile, canceled or diverted around 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of passengers. A Ryanair passenger plane parked on the tarmac at an airport.Credit: Ryanair Rolfe disclosed that the organization was investigating the incident and believed the problem was different from those behind previous failures. However, while he apologized for the disruption and said that a cyberattack had been ruled out, he was summoned to meet Transport Minister Heidi Alexander on Wednesday. Alexander urged all passengers to “continue to check with airlines” to confirm if their flights were operating as scheduled. “I am seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job,” she said on the social media platform X. Earlier issues spark concern The disruption has nevertheless raised fresh questions over the resilience of the UK’s air traffic infrastructure. Tuesday’s outage was not the first major technical problem to hit Britain’s air traffic network in recent years. A system failure in August 2023 caused widespread cancellations during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. It apparently cost airlines around USD 135 million (GBP 100 million). Another technical problem emerged in July 2025 when a radar-related fault disrupted flights at major airports, including Heathrow. In an interview with Reuters, Michael O’Leary, Ryanair CEO, said the outage was a repeat of the 2023 shutdown caused by a rogue flight plan. “Fire him. He’s been there since 2015. He is useless,” O’Leary said. The firm also issued a statement saying that over 65,000 of its passengers were affected by the outage. “How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns,” McMahon noted. “Families traveling on holiday, people traveling for work and thousands of visitors to the UK have once again paid the price for NATS’ abhorrent failure,” he added. Moynihan also joined Ryanair in calling on Rolfe to resign. “I think in any industry, when you’ve had three failures, you need to consider that three strikes and you’re out. So I think it’s certainly something that he needs to look at,” she said. “A third time and a third excuse is not enough anymore.” Rolfe took full responsibility for the incident. He has been given one week to investigate what happened and report his findings to Alexander. Get the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.Based in Skopje, North Macedonia. Her work has appeared in Daily Mail, Mirror, Daily Star, Yahoo, NationalWorld, Newsweek, Press Gazette and others. She covers stories on batteries, wind energy, sustainable shipping and new discoveries. When she's not chasing the next big science story, she's traveling, exploring new cultures, or enjoying good food with even better wine.