UK air cargo operations faced significant disruption after a technical failure in the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) flight-processing system affected departures and arrivals across major airports.
The outage on September 8 caused widespread flight cancellations and delays, with more than 2,000 flights ultimately affected as airlines and airports worked to clear the resulting backlog. The disruption also affected international services, creating knock-on effects for cargo movements through major UK gateways.
NATS said the problem originated in its flight-processing system and confirmed that engineers had implemented a fix. Although the system began recovering, the disruption continued as aircraft and crews had to be repositioned following the cancellations.
For the air cargo sector, the disruption created delays in the movement of freight and increased the risk of schedule changes at key UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham. The knock-on effects are expected to continue while airlines restore normal schedules and reposition aircraft.
The incident has also renewed concerns over the resilience of the UK’s air traffic control infrastructure. The UK government has asked NATS to provide an initial report within a week, while the Civil Aviation Authority will conduct an independent review into the failure and the system’s resilience.
NATS has ruled out a cyberattack and said it will conduct a full investigation to determine the root cause. The latest disruption comes after previous technical problems affecting UK air traffic control, increasing pressure on the operator to strengthen system reliability and contingency arrangements.