UK Air Traffic Control System Suffers Major Disruption, Cancels Over 2,000 Flights

According to the International Desk of Webangah News Agency, a widespread technical malfunction in the UK’s flight control system has been confirmed as the cause of significant air traffic disruption, with officials ruling out a cyberattack. The issue resulted in the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights and caused considerable inconvenience to tens of thousands of travelers across Tuesday and Wednesday.

Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS), apologized to passengers and assured that a comprehensive investigation into the cause of the failure would be conducted. He confirmed that while the system is now operating normally, a substantial backlog of flights and passengers remains.

Heidi Alexander, the UK’s Transport Secretary, has summoned Rolfe to provide an explanation for the incident. She is also expected to inform Members of Parliament that a cyberattack has been definitively excluded as the reason for the outage.

Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium indicated that approximately 1,750 flights were canceled on Tuesday, affecting tens of thousands of passengers. By Wednesday afternoon, at least an additional 291 flights had also been canceled.

The Telegraph newspaper had previously reported that equipment at NATS’s Swanwick headquarters near Southampton experienced a failure.