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Flights across the United Kingdom have been briefly disrupted as the country’s air traffic control authority reported a “technical issue”, but later said the glitch had been resolved.
The National Air Traffic Service, or NATS, said in a statement on Wednesday that departures at all airports have resumed and that teams are working with affected airlines and airports to “clear the backlog safely”.
“Our systems are fully operational and air traffic capacity is returning to normal,” it said.
Earlier, NATS said engineers were in the process of “resuming normal operations in the London area”.
The outage, announced by NATS 20, included Heathrow Airport, Britain’s largest airport and Europe’s busiest.
“Flights at Heathrow have resumed following a technical issue at the NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre. We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling,” an airport spokesperson said.
Gatwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport also said operations were resuming.
London City Airport had earlier also reported disruption. It was not clear exactly how long the outage had lasted.
In August 2023, flights across Britain were disrupted after the automatic processing of flight plans malfunctioned.
Britain’s aviation regulator last year said NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages after the outage, which airline bosses said cost them over 100m pounds ($133m) in refunds and compensation.
