Shafaqna Pakistan: Several departing flights at major UK airports faced delays and restrictions on Tuesday after air traffic control provider NATS reported a technical problem. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted airports were among those affected.
NATS said the disruption was traced to an issue with its flight processing system, with engineers working to restore normal operations as quickly as possible.
The airspace remained open and flights continued to depart, although NATS warned that it would take some time for operations to fully recover.
Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, said it was working closely with NATS to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Edinburgh Airport said in a post on X that the issue might impact its operations. Ireland’s Dublin airport said flights leaving and arriving from 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.
Source: Dunya News
