UK CAA to investigate NATS air traffic control failure, focusing on modernisation

The UK Civil Aviation Authority has started a review of the air traffic management failure that disrupted UK airspace in September. Its findings will cover NATS's modernisation programme and how far the provider has acted on earlier recommendations.

The regulator is carrying out the work at the government's request. An early report is due to transport secretary Heidi Alexander by the end of January 2027, with a final version to be published by 8 March.

Alexander said she wants the review to produce explanations and remedies. Passengers and airlines had been failed repeatedly in recent weeks, she said, and she was determined to establish why. The review would ask what went wrong and whether NATS is prepared for the future in terms of investment, systems and resilience.

NATS has issued its own preliminary account of the 8 September event, which led to more than 2,000 flights being cancelled. That report attributed the outage to a software problem unrelated to previous incidents. Temporary measures were in place while a permanent fix was tested and rolled out, the provider said.

The CAA said its review will take account of NATS's findings, look at how consumers were affected, and identify further steps that could bolster confidence in the resilience of the UK's air traffic management system. It will examine NATS's plans for renewing, replacing and updating critical operational systems, and consider how continuity arrangements for the existing systems might be improved.

The scope also includes how effectively NATS has carried out recommendations from earlier reviews, along with the strength of regulatory oversight.