FLIGHTS at Edinburgh Airport and sites across Scotland have been cancelled and delayed after a “technical issue” at Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire.
On Monday morning, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) engineers were called in to fix an issue at the NATS Prestwick Centre, which handles air traffic control in Scotland and northern England.
NATS representatives said the issue has now been resolved but disruption remains as engineers work with airlines and airports to safely lift regulations.
They also clarified that the issue was unrelated to the software failure that led to the cancellation of 2,000 flights across the UK earlier in September.
Passengers at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick airports posted about their delays on social media, while a spokesperson for the Highlands and Island airports said flight schedules were being impacted.
A NATS spokesperson said: “The issue in our Prestwick centre is now fixed. We are working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption.
“Passengers should still check the status of their flight with their airline. We apologise for the disruption.”
A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport said: “We are experiencing some delays due to the NATS issue at Prestwick Centre.
“We are monitoring the situation closely and are working with NATS as they work to resolve the issue.”
Delays have also been reported at Dundee, Manchester, Belfast, and Newcastle airports.
A spokesperson for AGS, which operates Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports, said: “Some services operating to and from our airports are experiencing delays, primarily at Glasgow Airport, and further disruption is expected due to the knock-on impact across the network.
“This is the second time in as many weeks that a NATS technical issue has had a significant impact on services operating through our airports, and we fully appreciate the frustration this will cause those whose travel plans have been disrupted.”
Airlines have expressed frustration with the fault, which comes around two weeks after another major fault impacted air traffic control operations on 8 September.
Ryanair slammed NATS’ “mitigation plan” – published just three days before the latest fault – as “worthless” and called for NATS’ chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign.
Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, said: “Just three days after NATS assured airlines and passengers that it had introduced a robust ‘mitigation plan’, its flight data processing system has failed again.
“More than 25,000 Ryanair passengers have already suffered disruption, with over 140 Ryanair flights delayed, yet NATS still cannot tell passengers when this disruption will end.
“Martin Rolfe’s report claimed that another failure was ‘unlikely’ and that NATS could recover more quickly if one occurred.
“Those claims have been exposed as completely worthless. Just three days later, passengers are once again suffering lengthy delays because NATS has failed to deliver either a reliable system or an effective back-up.
“After the August 2023 collapse, Martin Rolfe assured Parliament that it was a ‘once-in-a-lifetime event’. Then NATS collapsed again on 8 Sept, disrupting more than 2,000 flights.
“Now, just 13 days later, the same flight data processing system has failed once more. How many times must UK passengers suffer disruption before Martin Rolfe is replaced by somebody competent?”
McMahon concluded: “Another review, another report and another round of empty promises will not fix NATS.
“Martin Rolfe has presided over repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system. Enough is enough.
“Martin Rolfe should resign today. If he will not, then Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander should fire him and appoint somebody capable of delivering the resilient ATC service that UK passengers and airlines deserve.”
Steve Heapy, Jet2 chief executive, said: “Once again, airlines and customers are being disrupted by yet another NATS issue, and one has to ask: how many more failures do customers and airlines have to deal with.
“Customers work hard to look forward to their holidays, and airlines work hard to deliver those holidays. They should not be repeatedly exposed to delays and disruption because the UK’s air traffic control systems cannot be relied upon.”
NATS is the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services and handles around 2.5 million flights every year.
Pressure has built on the provider after a string of air traffic incidents in recent years.
In 2023, a computer shutdown over the August bank holiday weekend caused chaos for 700,000 passengers while a smaller outage in 2025 caused around 150 cancellations.
