New UK air traffic control failure delays flights at several airports

Flights at several British airports were delayed on Monday after a fresh air traffic control failure, less than two weeks after a separate fault brought services across the country to a halt.

NATS, the UK's air traffic control provider, said the problem originated at its Prestwick centre in Scotland. Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast airports reported delays, while London's Gatwick and City airports warned of some disruption.

EasyJet said it had cancelled some flights, and British Airways told customers they were likely to face disruption through the day.

NATS said the delays were "unrelated to the issue two weeks ago", when a software defect led to around 2,000 flights being cancelled. Airports south of Manchester were broadly unaffected, it added, though flights heading north and departures from Scottish airports were subject to delay.

The earlier outage, in August 2023, cost airlines £100 million and caused widespread travel chaos. Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, has been calling for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to step down.

EasyJet said Monday's disruption, which did not appear as severe as the failure two weeks ago that delayed hundreds of thousands of passengers, underlined weaknesses in the air traffic operator's systems.

"This, once again, calls into question the resilience of NATS' systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures," the airline said.