Some UK departing flights disrupted by NATS technical issue

Some departing flights at major British airports were disrupted on Tuesday after air traffic control provider NATS experienced a technical issue, with Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted among the airports affected by restrictions and delays.

"We are investigating a technical issue which is causing some disruption to flight departures. Our engineers are on site and we will provide an update as soon as we can," NATS said in a post on X.

Heathrow, Britain's biggest hub, said it was working with NATS to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

The air traffic control service @NATS is experiencing a technical issue which is impacting departing flights at UK airports.

Arriving flights are not currently impacted.

We are supporting our local NATS team in their efforts to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We… pic.twitter.com/0s5pu4ODM5

— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) September 8, 2026

ℹ️ Technical issue

We have identified that the issue was in our flight processing system.  Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible. We recognise the ongoing disruption to travel, for which we sincerely apologise. (1/3) https://t.co/T9tF7j31e1

— NATS (@NATS) September 8, 2026

Edinburgh Airport said in a post on X that the issue might impact its operations. Ireland's Dublin airport said flights there were also being affected.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said on social media that arrivals and departures were being heavily regulated at airports in the London flight information region because of the issue.

This is the latest problem to hit the country's air traffic control systems.

In 2024, Britain's aviation regulator said NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages after the automatic processing of flight plans had malfunctioned a year earlier, causing chaos across Britain's airports.

Airline bosses said it had cost them over £100 million ($135.49 million) in refunds and compensation.

In July last year, a radar-related technical issue in Britain's air traffic control system disrupted flights for over four hours at major airports in London and elsewhere, including Heathrow.