British airports are rushing to resume services this week after an hours-long air traffic control outage forced the cancellation of around 2,000 flights across multiple transport hubs and left thousands of passengers stranded.
Many major regional airlines on Tuesday canceled hundreds of flights to and from London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. Some flights have resumed, but many travelers continued to face cancellations and delays Wednesday.
The National Air Traffic Service (NATS), the UK’s air traffic control service, has come under fire for the latest outage.
British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander met NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe on Wednesday and raised “serious concerns about the scale of the disruption” and called for an investigation into what went wrong, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.
As well as Manchester, disruptions were also reported at London’s airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. A total of more than 1,750 flights to and from UK airports were canceled on Tuesday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Another 291 flights were canceled on Wednesday.
More than 330,000 passengers have been affected by the disruption, according to British industry body UK Airways, whose chief executive wrote to Britain’s Transport Secretary on Wednesday to express concerns about the failure of the NATS system.
Heathrow Airport said on Wednesday morning that flights were “operating” but that disruptions may continue as airlines “make changes to aircraft and crew deployments”. Travelers were told to check with their airlines before traveling. Gatwick University and Stansted University issued similar statements.
According to data from the Airports Council International, Heathrow Airport is the seventh busiest airport in the world by passenger numbers in 2025. More than 84 million people passed through it last year.
This is not the first major power outage to affect passengers at Heathrow or other UK airports in recent years.
In August 2023, several UK airports and airlines were forced to cancel hundreds of departures and arrivals on the last day of the summer holiday weekend following a major outage that plagued NATS.
Several low-cost airlines this week blamed NATS for its slow resolution of the mess.
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said on Tuesday that the problem had disrupted 65,000 passengers and canceled more than 50 scheduled flights. According to Reuters, the disruption immediately cost airlines up to $4.06 million (£3 million) in losses.
British Airways, the UK’s flag carrier, said in a social media post on Wednesday that it had “no choice” but to cancel more than 190 flights.
NATS said on Wednesday that operations were “stable” and confirmed a “full investigation” would be carried out to “identify whether further action is required”.
“We continue to work closely with airlines and airports to support their recovery,” NATS said in a statement. “We would also like to once again apologize to all passengers, airlines and airports affected by yesterday’s system issue,” the statement added.
Passengers flooded social media to express their displeasure and share photos of large crowds snaking through airport halls.
One X user called this the “most stressful and disappointing experience” he had had on any transport, adding that British Airways offered an alternative to “2.5 hour flight to Rome with 4 connections in 24 hours”.
Josie Donoghue was stranded on a plane at Gatwick Airport for three hours before her Ryanair flight to Ireland was canceled, according to the Associated Press.
“Going through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz,” she told the news agency, referring to the former island prison in San Francisco Bay. “It’s an absolute nightmare out there. That’s the only word I can use to describe it.”
Some on social media praised ground staff for helping in the chaotic situation.
The disruption is affecting some Americans who are returning home from vacations in Europe. A family attempting to fly back to Connecticut after traveling to the Greek island of Santorini was stranded at London’s Heathrow Airport.
He told British news agency PA Media that all hotels near the airport were full and the family ended up sleeping on the airport floor.
The ripple effects are being felt in other countries as well.
Air India said in a statement to
Qatar Airways also warned of possible delays and reroutes for flights to and from the UK.
In a statement on Tuesday, Ryanair chief operating officer Neil McMahon called for Mr Rolfe’s resignation from NATS.
Referring to the disruption in 2023, Mr McMahon said: “Families traveling on holiday, people traveling for work and thousands of tourists visiting the UK have once again paid the price for NATS’s abhorrent failure.”
“A national critical infrastructure provider should not repeatedly take down its aviation systems. NATS is simply not fit for purpose in its current form,” a spokesperson for European low-cost airline Wizz Air said, according to Reuters.
Mr Rolfe told public broadcaster BBC that the NATS system was fit for purpose, defended his organization and apologized for Tuesday’s problems.
“We never want something like this to happen, but we sincerely apologize that this has happened today. We believe it served our purpose,” he said.
Since that incident in 2023, UK airports have suffered major outages almost every year.
Last year, Heathrow Airport was closed following a “massive power outage” caused by a massive fire nearby. The closure disrupted travel around the world, disrupting travelers’ plans and affecting thousands of flights. Economic losses from the closure were expected to run into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
And in 2024, a global IT software crash caused widespread delays and operational issues at airports around the world, including the UK.
