Second UK air traffic outage in two weeks hits flights
LONDON: UK flights faced fresh disruption Monday, with some cancelled due to a technical issue at the nation’s air traffic control agency – the second such outage in two weeks.
LONDON: The UK air traffic control agency, National Air Traffic Services (NATS), experienced another technical issue on Monday, causing flight cancellations and delays. This marks the second outage in two weeks, following a software glitch on September 8-9 that led to over 2,000 cancellations and affected more than 330,000 passengers.
NATS apologized for the latest incident at a centre in Scotland, stating that it was unrelated to the previous issue. Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported that about 200 out of more than 6,000 flights to or from the UK had been cancelled. While some airports, like Glasgow and Belfast, experienced high cancellations, London's airports were spared.
Transport minister Heidi Alexander expressed frustration for passengers following the repeated incidents. Irish airline Ryanair called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe's resignation, citing the ongoing issues. EasyJet, the most affected airline, reiterated calls for action to prevent further failures, highlighting the need for improvements in NATS' systems.
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