Widespread air traffic control breakdown: London airports paralyzed

A widespread outage affects London airports. Since the beginning of the afternoon this Tuesday, the two main infrastructures, Heathrow and Gatewick, have been forced to keep all aircraft on the ground. No departure has taken place since then. Planes to the UK capital, on the other hand, appear to be able to land normally, according to information from airports. However, online, passengers claim to be stuck in different places in Europe waiting for their flight to Great Britain to take off. Similarly, flight tracking website Flightradar24 reported on social media that arrivals and departures were being strictly regulated at airports in the London area due to the issue.

The outage stems from a failure of the air traffic control service provider NATS (National Air Traffic Services). The latter invites passengers to “check the status of the flight with their company.” According to British media The Telegraph, the difficulties are expected to last at least until 7 p.m.

Heathrow, the UK's largest air hub, said it was working with NATS to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. For the moment, the complications mainly concern the capital, but other airports have indicated that they risk being affected in turn. This is particularly the case for Edinburgh and Manchester. For the moment, only delays in flight plans are anticipated. No cancellations are planned.

This is the latest incident to impact the country's air traffic control systems. In 2024, the British aviation regulator said NATS must review its emergency plans in the event of a breakdown, after a malfunction in automatic flight plan processing a year earlier caused chaos at British airports. Airline executives estimated the reimbursements and compensation at more than £100 million ($135.49 million).

In July last year, a technical problem with radar in Britain's air traffic control system disrupted flights for more than four hours at major airports in London and elsewhere, including Heathrow.