NATS failure disrupts Scottish airports as airlines demand action

A connectivity problem at the Prestwick control centre operated by UK air navigation service provider NATS disrupted airports across Scotland on 21 September. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen were affected, and by mid-morning the fallout had spread to flights bound for Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast and Dublin. Cirium data cited in the report puts the number of cancelled flights at 277.

The disruption came less than two weeks after an earlier system failure on 8 September, which led to more than 2,000 cancellations across the UK. Prestwick handles traffic for the Scottish flight information region and works alongside the Swanwick centre, which covers the London FIR.

The latest failure has drawn criticism from UK carriers. Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to step down, citing repeated system failures and disruption to passengers. Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy said his airline would send another bill to NATS, just days after the provider published a report into its most recent major failure.

Heapy said there had been too many incidents, reports and promises, and that carriers and customers now needed action, accountability and proper resilience urgently. Jet2 is asking NATS and the government to set out what is being done immediately to strengthen system resilience and cut the chance of further failures. EasyJet said the incident raised questions about the resilience of NATS' systems.