UK flights resume after major air traffic outage

British airports saw the resumption of flights early on Wednesday (Sep 9) following a significant air traffic control failure on Tuesday, September 8. Over 1,000 flights were cancelled, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded and raising questions about the reliability of Britain's aviation systems. The hours-long shutdown has put pressure on air traffic control provider NATS and its CEO, Martin Rolfe.

Transport Minister Heidi Alexander summoned Rolfe to explain the incident, expressing concerns over the infrastructure and technology. This latest outage comes three years after a similar system failure in August 2023, which resulted in £100 million (US$135 million) in cancelled flights. Another disruptive event occurred in July 2025, affecting major airports, including London’s Heathrow.

Transport Minister Alexander sought assurances from Rolfe that lessons would be learned and that systems supporting aviation would be up to the task. Ryanair, Europe's biggest airline, has been calling for Rolfe's resignation since 2023, and Wizz Air's managing director, Yvonne Moynihan, urged him to consider his position, stating that after three failures, "three strikes and you're out."

Rolfe apologized to those affected by the issue, dismissing the possibility of a cyberattack and emphasizing that the issue would be different from previous outages. He affirmed that the UK has one of the best reputations globally for its air traffic control service, both in terms of safety and resilience. As operations restarted, Heathrow warned passengers to check with their airline due to potential changes in schedules caused by the problems on Tuesday.

Both London Gatwick and Ryanair reported that passengers had been affected, with Ryanair cancelling over 200 flights and British Airways cancelling or diverting 100 flights, impacting tens of thousands. NATS is a public-private partnership, partially owned by airlines, pension funds, and the government.