UK Air Traffic Control Glitch Disrupts Air India Flights

NEW DELHI:
Air India on Wednesday said its flight operations to and from the United Kingdom were disrupted following a technical fault at NATS, Britain’s air traffic control provider.

The airline said multiple flights had to be diverted, delayed or cancelled after the disruption affected operations at airports across the UK. It also warned that the impact could spill over to some other services as aircraft and crew were left out of position.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are making every effort to minimise disruptions as much as possible,” Air India said in a travel advisory posted on X.

The airline advised passengers to check their flight status before leaving for the airport.

According to flight-tracking data, more than 1,000 flights were cancelled across Britain after the technical failure disrupted arrivals and departures at several major airports, including London’s Heathrow, Edinburgh and Manchester.

NATS, which manages air traffic control across Britain, said the disruption was caused by a technical problem with its flight processing system. It later announced that a technical fix had been implemented and the system issue resolved, but cautioned that clearing the resulting backlog would take time.

“Our system issue is now resolved. We are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” NATS said.

Heathrow said it was working closely with NATS to reduce the impact on passengers and flight schedules.

The disruption also affected air services between Britain and Ireland, with Dublin Airport warning passengers that flights to and from the UK could be impacted. British Airways separately said it was experiencing disruption due to the failure affecting the national air traffic control system.