Flights across the UK are being disrupted by a "technical issue" with air traffic control - here are the airports affected
Nats, which runs air traffic control, says it was a "connectivity issue with part of our systems network" - and had "nothing to do" with a software defect that led to the cancellation of 2,000 flights across the UK earlier this month
The issue at Nats' Prestwick centre in Ayrshire is "now fixed", it adds
EasyJet says this "once again calls into questions the resilience of Nats' systems" and Ryanair says Nats has failed to deliver "either a reliable system or an effective back-up"
Meanwhile, trade body Airlines UK says both passengers and airlines "deserve better"
"I'm cheesed off with air traffic control as it seems to be happening a lot," one passenger in Birmingham tells us - another passenger in Bristol, who was delayed for hours earlier this month, says: "I can't believe it's happened again"
In a new statement, a spokesperson for Nats says: "Any service interruption is unwanted, and something we take very seriously.
"In the real world we accept technology can and sometimes does fail. Our job is minimising disruption where possible.
"What isn’t acceptable is any incident where safety is compromised - this is always our first priority."
Paul Ward
Reporting from Glasgow airport
Nicole McCloskey, from Kilmarnock, was due to be on a cancelled flight to Paris with her husband and daughters Aiofe and Nuala.
Nicole tells the BBC they got a message to say the flight was delayed while they were travelling to Glasgow airport, but they only found out it had been cancelled when they arrived.
They have rebooked another flight for this afternoon. "Fingers crossed it’s sorted in time," Nicole says.
"We were supposed to be going for four nights and going to Disney. Even if it is a shorter trip we will get there."
The girls say it will be worth the wait as long as they still get to meet Ariel and Rapunzel.
Archie Mitchell
Business reporter
Image source, Getty ImagesThe chief executive of airline Jet2 has called for "urgent and accountable" action to bolster the UK’s air traffic control infrastructure in the wake of the latest outage.
Steve Heapy says airlines and customers are "once again being disrupted by yet another NATS issue” and asked: "How many more failures do customers and airlines have to deal with?"
The airline rejected the idea of further "reports and apologies" to address the issue, and said it is "counting the cost of this disruption and will be sending another bill to Nats".
A spokesperson for the City of Derry airport says that there are delays on the easyJet Edinburgh service and Loganair's Heathrow service this morning.
There are also delays expected to Ryanair's Manchester route. Separately, the spokesperson says, easyJet's Liverpool service and Logainair's Glasgow service have been cancelled.
"We kindly advise all passengers affected to check with their airline for the latest updates on flights and contact their airline directly any queries," the spokesperson says.
They add live updates on arrivals and departures are available on the airport website.
Mary Litchfield
Your Voice
Peter Allison is the director of a small independent business of whisky makers and is flying from Edinburgh to London Gatwick, before travelling to Bordeaux for a two day conference.
But, with the delays he is going to miss his connection to Bordeaux and the first day of the conference.
Peter tells the BBC he is hopeful of booking another flight to get to Bordeaux for tomorrow, but says "it isn't great, as a small business, we don't have the funds to spend on flights".
His captain announced some flights had been allowed to take off, but warned they could be delayed for up to three hours.
"Communication has been really bad, we don't really know what's happening, the updates are few and far between. We don't really know what "NATS" or "slots" are as passengers, so it's not ideal.
"It's a bit of a nightmare."
Airlines UK, the trade body representing British airlines, says both passengers and airlines "deserve better" following the latest disruption caused by a Nats fault.
“Yet another Nats failure is causing delays and disruption for passengers and airlines alike, and comes just days after its report into the most recent major outage," says Airiness UK boss Tim Alderslade.
He says the UK's air traffic control system is "critical national infrastructure" and "must be resilient enough to keep people moving".
He adds that the upcoming civil aviation bill in Parliament "must address the underlying weaknesses in the system so that these failures stop happening".
Jack Grey
Live reporter
Image source, ReutersRyanair are among the airlines to criticise air traffic control operators after the latest disruption
Dozens of flights have been delayed and some cancelled due to an air traffic control fault at the Nats Prestwick centre in Ayrshire, Scotland.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has announced the issue now been "fixed", but acknowledges it would be "deeply frustrating" for passengers after previous chaos caused by a separate Nats issue earlier this month.
Here's what we know:
Airlines have yet again made their frustrations with the UK's air traffic controls systems clear, with Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon stating that Nats boss Martin Rolfe "should resign today".
EasyJet adds that the fresh flight disruption "once again calls into question the resilience of Nats' systems".
London City airport says it is experiencing "some disruption" following the air traffic control issue that is affecting flights primarily in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.
The airport advises passengers to check with their airlines before setting out on their journeys.
Over at London Gatwick, a spokesperson says "a small number of flights" may face delays due to the Nats technical issues.
"Passengers should contact their airline for the latest updates," the statement adds.
Luton airport says "a number of domestic flights" to and from the airport have been disrupted, advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling to the airport.
Alex Emery
Your Voice
Becky Freeman is at Bristol airport where she's trying to get to Edinburgh for a business meeting.
Becky says she rescheduled her flight to today after being caught up in the disruption caused by a separate air traffic control issue earlier this month.
"I was caught up in the Nats issue earlier this month and spent nine hours at Bristol airport," she tells me.
“I can’t believe it’s happened again. It is very frustrating and I will have to attempt the business meeting again for a third time."
“I’m now going home but it’s chaos at Bristol airport," she adds.
Theo Leggett
Business correspondent
This is the second failure at Nats, the company that looks after UK airspace, in less than a fortnight. We don’t know the details of what happened on this occasion, just that there was a technical failure at Nats’ control centre in Prestwick.
Nats has two main centres. The first, at Swanwick in Hampshire looks after airspace in the southern part of the UK, including the approaches to Heathrow and Gatwick.
Prestwick in Ayrshire looks after traffic across northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, catering for about 42% of the UK’s air traffic.
The failure on 8 September occurred at Swanwick. A software glitch, combined with what Nats described as very specific circumstances, knocked out networks used by controllers. Nats says the latest failure was different.
However, the fact that the UK’s air traffic control system has suffered two significant issues in a short space of time is likely to attract a great deal of criticism, and the pressure on chief executive Martin Rolfe - who insisted last week he would not resign - is only likely to mount.
Flight delays set back travellers around the country earlier this month after an air traffic control failure caused by a "software defect" prompted Nats' system to produce corrupted data.
The issue led to 2,000 cancelled flights at the UK's main airports, with hundreds of thousands of passengers impacted.
Questions are growing over the resilience of Nats' systems, and Airlines UK, an industry body, has called for immediate compensation for costs incurred
Separately, there are calls for Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign - though he told the BBC last week that he won't step aside, calling the software defect "very, very obscure."
"You can fly to almost anywhere from almost any airport at almost any time. If that stops, even for a moment, then you get huge disruption."
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander called the widespread disruption "completely unacceptable".
In 2023, a computer shutdown over the August bank holiday weekend caused chaos for 700,000 passengers.
There was another, smaller Nats outage in 2025, which caused 150 cancellations.
Ryanair has called on Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign after claiming over 140 of its flights have been delayed and more than 25,000 Ryanair passengers are expected to be disrupted following the outage.
Ryanair's chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, says Nats has failed to deliver "either a reliable system or an effective back-up" in the wake of repeated technical issues in August 2023 and 8 September this year.
He claims Rolfe has presided over "repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system", adding that "enough is enough".
"How many times must UK passengers suffer disruption before Martin Rolfe is replaced by somebody competent?" he adds.
Image source, NatsMartin Rolfe, chief executive officer of the Nats
We've received an update from aviation analytics company Cirium, which says 35 flights departing from the UK have been cancelled or did not fly so far on Monday.
It adds that of the 3,048 flights scheduled to arrive into the UK, 37 were cancelled or did not fly.
"If this were the end of the day...this level of cancellations is close to normal (around 1%). However, as it's early in the day, we anticipate that operational performance will degrade quickly," a spokesperson says.
Alex Emery
Your Voice
Steve Davies, 74, from Evesham, is currently stuck at Birmingham airport where he is waiting to travel with easyJet to Edinburgh with his wife Sandie.
He says they boarded the plane but were asked to disembark after 45 minutes.
“We are feeling tired after an early start, and quite uncertain about what is happening," he says.
“I’m cheesed off with air traffic control as it seems to be happening a lot. It’s not easyJet’s fault."
Steve adds that "about 20 people left the flight and have gone home because they didn’t want to wait".
Image source, Steve Davies
While the air traffic control issue that caused disruption across parts of the UK has been fixed, delays are still expected while "things reset", the transport secretary has warned.
Airports across the UK have reported varying degrees of disruption, they include:
In another statement, Nats says they "experienced a technical issue at our Prestwick centre in Scotland" early this morning.
"To maintain safety, air traffic regulations were applied to manage traffic demand while our engineers investigated.
"This was a connectivity issue with part of our systems network, specific to the operation in Scotland. It is nothing to do with the problem we had earlier this month."
A short while ago, Nats confirmed the issue was fixed and said it was working with airports to lift air traffic restrictions as quickly as they can.
Earlier this month, 2000 flights were cancelled after a software defect, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander says engineers have "fixed the problem and systems are resuming" after a technical issue with the UK's air traffic control.
"I know this will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue.
"There may be some delays as things reset. Please check with your airline for updates," she adds in a post on X.
Nats has also confirmed the issue is resolved.
Heidi Alexander, speaking earlier this year
Nats says the issue in the Prestwick Centre is "now fixed".
“We are working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption," it says.
"Passengers should still check the status of their flight with their airline. We apologise for the disruption.”
Glasgow airport says the technical issue affecting Nats' systems is causing delays, with "further disruption" expected.
"A technical issue affecting NATS air traffic control services at the Prestwick Centre is causing disruption to some flight departures and arrivals," says the airport.
"As a result, some services operating to and from our airports are experiencing delays," it says, adding that "further disruption is expected due to the knock-on impact across the network".
"We apologise for any inconvenience and advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest flight information before travelling."
Our reporter at the airport says the information board shows widespread delays to both domestic and international flights through the day.
Paul Ward
Reporting from Glasgow Airport
When I arrived at Glasgow airport this morning there was a tannoy call announcing an easyJet flight to Paris was cancelled.
That adds to a growing list. The departures board shows further cancellations on flights to Luton, Southampton, Belfast and Derry.
There are also some cancellations on flights to Scottish islandsand other flights are facing delays in taking off.
Some passengers have been coming through on arrival flights, but again the board shows widespread delays to both domestic and international flights through the day.
A section of the online departures board at Glasgow Airport, seen a short time ago
