NATS fixes ATC technical issue as hundreds of flights cancelled
A technical issue affecting the NATS flight planning system which resulted in hundreds of flights being cancelled and delayed has been remedied, although the impact will be continue to be…
A technical issue affecting the NATS flight planning system which resulted in hundreds of flights being cancelled and delayed has been remedied, although the impact will be continue to be felt with further disruption across the UK on Monday.
Earlier in the day, a major system outage was declared, affecting UK air traffic control computer systems and triggering flight delays across the country.
Air traffic control outage
British Airways said flights were being “severely disrupted” and warned it was forced to make “significant changes” to its schedule.
Loganair said its flights were also affected by the issue. The Scottish airline said: “There has been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems this morning.
“Although we are hopeful of being able to operate most intra-Scotland flights on the basis of local coordination and with a minimum of disruption, north-south and international flights maybe subject to delays.
“If you are flying with us today, please check our website for the latest information about your flight before setting off for the airport.”
Flight planning system
Confirming that the issued had been resolved, NATS said in a statement: “We have identified and remedied the technical issue affecting our flight planning system this morning. We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system’s performance as we return to normal operations.
“The flight planning issue affected the system’s ability to automatically process flight plans, meaning that flight plans had to be processed manually which cannot be done at the same volume, hence the requirement for traffic flow restrictions.
“Our priority is always to ensure that every flight in the UK remains safe and we are sincerely sorry for the disruption this is causing. Please contact your airline for information on how this may affect your flight.”
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