UK Flights Delayed Due to Air Traffic Control Issues

Hundreds of UK flights were delayed due to an air traffic control issue.
There was a big disruption in UK airspace this morning because the National Air Traffic Services did not get weather information.
Ryanair had 155 flights delayed, affecting 30,000 passengers, with delays of up to three hours. EasyJet had 253 flights delayed, which is 13% of its total flights.
A Met Office technical issue meant that NATS did not receive vital weather information. Weather information is important for air traffic controllers and pilots to manage flights safely.
Some air traffic restrictions were put in place this morning and have now been removed. NATS is working with the Met Office to fully resolve the problem.
Passengers are waiting at Stansted Airport after UK flights were delayed due to a technical issue.
The Met Office has been contacted for comment.
Ryanair's Chief Operations Officer said that UK passengers are being delayed again because NATS' systems have failed.
Today's outage delayed 155 Ryanair flights and disrupted 30,000 passengers. Families and people traveling for work have been affected.
In August 2023, a technical problem caused significant delays and cancellations across the UK. Hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled, and some passengers waited days for alternative flights. Over 700,000 passengers were affected.
An investigation found that an engineer could not fix the fault from home and arrived at work over three hours after the incident began.
A single flight from Los Angeles to Paris triggered the failure. The air traffic control system was confused by a duplicate code.
The engineer could not resolve the problem, but the system's manufacturer eventually found the fault and restored the system.
An independent review found that the incident represented a major failure of the air traffic control system, causing distress to over 700,000 passengers. The review sets out recommendations to improve NATS' operations and the aviation sector.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority's Chief Executive said that the report sets out recommendations to learn from the incident and improve the UK's aviation system. The authority is working to implement these recommendations.