UK Orders Nats Probe After 2,000 Flight Cancellations as Minister Calls 4-Hour Failure Avoidable
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Sep 9
UK Orders Nats Probe After 2,000 Flight Cancellations as Minister Calls 4-Hour Failure Avoidable
3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Sep 9
Summary
More than 2,000 flights had been cancelled by Wednesday evening after Nats' flight-processing system failed for four hours on Tuesday, with disruption spilling into a second day across major UK airports.
Heidi Alexander told Parliament the outage was avoidable, ruled out a cyberattack after meeting Nats chief Martin Rolfe, and ordered an independent Civil Aviation Authority investigation alongside a one-week Nats report.
Nats has apologized for its third major technical fault in three years, while airlines including Ryanair and Wizz Air called for Rolfe to step down and industry group Airlines UK demanded stronger accountability.
Passengers are unlikely to win compensation because regulators view the outage as an "extraordinary circumstance," though airlines still must provide care for delayed or stranded travelers.
The failure revived scrutiny of Nats' resilience after a 2023 bank-holiday breakdown disrupted 700,000 passengers and a smaller 2025 outage caused 150 cancellations.