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NATS failure triggers 1,700 UK flight cancellations, with disruption continuing at Heathrow

A systems failure at UK air traffic control provider NATS caused 1,700 flight cancellations on Tuesday and more than 300 on Wednesday, with Heathrow among the airports still affected. The government has given NATS one week to investigate as airlines work through continuing delays and cancellations.

Discovered 2026-09-08T22:15:09.324264-07:00 | 2026-09-08T22:15:09.324264-07:00

Briefing

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The NATS failure caused 1,700 cancellations on Tuesday and more than 300 on Wednesday, demonstrating the immediate network impact of an air traffic control systems outage.
Heathrow and other UK airports continued to face delays and cancellations as airlines recovered, with disruption expected to persist for days.
The government’s one-week investigation deadline puts pressure on NATS to establish the failure’s cause and address resilience concerns; a British Airways long-haul flight also returned to London amid the outage and separate technical trouble.

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