Flights grounded across all major UK airports leaving passengers stranded
Flights across the UK have been temporarily grounded due to an ongoing issue at major airports across the country.
The disruption is due to a technical failure at air traffic control headquarters Nats, which is responsible for guiding flights to all UK airports.
It's understood that major transport hubs such as Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast City, Aberdeen, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Glasgow, as well as London's Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City airports, have all been impacted.
Nats has since acknowledged that a 'technical issue' with its 'flight processing system' is responsible for causing the outage and said that it will 'take some time' for normal travel to resume.
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"Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible," a spokesperson for Nats said.
"We recognise the ongoing disruption to travel, for which we sincerely apologise. Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time."
The statement continued: "We will provide further updates as soon as possible. Passengers should check the status of their flight with their airline."
A spokesperson for Nats has since told The Telegraph there is 'nothing to suggest' the technical failure has been caused by a cyber incident.
The outlet added that reports of a 'data processing' failure had first been reported at around 1pm this afternoon, with flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick expected to be disrupted until 7pm.
Meanwhile, flight monitoring website Flightradar24 has estimated that around 200 flights have been cancelled this afternoon due to the issue, with the number expected to rise.
"It’s going to be major disruption not necessarily based on cancellations alone but certainly cancellations and delays including connecting flights," FlightRadar24 director of communications Ian Petchenik said in a statement.
"I think we will start to see a further wave of cancellations. It sounds like Nats has resolved the issue but once the damage has been done it takes a little time to unwind, so I think we’ll start to see cancellations increase for a while then decrease.
"(Airlines) will make a decision on which flights are best to operate and which flights might not be the best to operate on getting the largest number of passengers through the system."
This isn't the first time in which travellers flying through the UK have faced disruptions, with a 'radar-related issue grounding flights back in August 2023, causing delays and cancellations for over 700,000 passengers. Meanwhile, a 'software error' in 2025 meant that 150 flights across the UK were cancelled.
Ryanair calls for Nats CEO to resign over technical failure
Following the disruption, Ryanair COO Neal McMahon has called for Nats CEO Martin Rolfe to resign.
“How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?" McMahon said in a statement shared on the company's website.
"Over three years after NATS’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable ATC delays of up to 8 hours today due a critical NATS ATC system failing.
"Families travelling on holiday, people travelling for work and thousands of visitors to the UK have once again paid the price for NATS’ abhorrent failure."
"The astonishing part is that NATS continues to charge airlines and passengers more each year while delivering a worse service. Following the 2023 collapse, we were told lessons would be learned.
"We were told 'resilience would improve'. We were told the systems had been fixed. Yet here we are again. This is a pattern of repeated failure with Rolfe in charge getting paid over £1.4m in bonuses p.a. while he delivers failure after failure.
"The UK Government, the CAA and the NATS Board must stop making excuses for repeated NATS failures and appoint a new leader capable of running the UK ATC system without repeated failures. It's time for overpaid failure Martin Rolfe to go."
What are passengers entitled to when experiencing delays?
Flights from UK airports are subject to European rules, and this isn't good news for anyone experiencing a delay that's under two hours, as this leaves them with no rights - unless a short delay in the UK triggers a missed connection and much later arrival at the final ticketed destination.
Airlines are required by law to provide refreshments after a specified length of time delayed, and if the delay extends overnight, the airline is obliged to find and pay for a hotel room.
In practice, carriers often invite the passenger to book their own and reclaim later.
To qualify for a cash payout, as outlined by The Independent, if someone is flying from a UK/EU airport or on a British/ European airline and has their flight cancelled - or are delayed in arrival by at least three hours - the payment depends on distance:
- Under 1,500km, for example London to Barcelona: £220 or €250
- 1,500-3,500km, such as Manchester-Lisbon: £350 or €400
- Above 3,500km, eg Birmingham-Dubai: £520 or €600. If a long-haul arrival delay is between three and four hours, the compensation is halved
Airlines can avoid paying out in 'extraordinary circumstances', which includes: 'political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes'.
Claims should be made directly through airlines, it's important to note.
Brenna Cooper