UK airports are restoring normal services after a systems failure at air traffic control provider NATS briefly grounded all flights on Thursday 30 July.

The fault – which is not believed to be the result of a cyber attack – lasted for just 20 minutes but created a knock-on effect that led to the cancellation of over 150 flights and delays to thousands more.

NATS said the outage was the result of a technical issue, reported to be radar-related, at its Swanwick air traffic control centre which forced it to limit traffic within its London control area to ensure safety. It apologised to all affected by the disruption.

The cancellations come at one of the busiest times for air travel as the August holiday period begins. Among the affected airlines are Easyjet and Ryanair, both of which have called for answers on how this latest incident has happened.

In August 2023, over 700,000 passengers were affected by a major outage with NATS systems which led to the cancellation of more than 500 flights across the UK’s airports.

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