Airlines Confidential · Wednesday, September 16, 2026
A major air traffic control system outage in the UK, attributed to an issue with a flight management system at National Air Traffic Services (NATS), led to approximately 2,500 flight cancellations. Travelers experienced significant chaos, including long waits and uncertainty.
“Our friends at Cirium counted, um, something like 2,500 cancellations. Most of them came on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, after National Air Traffic Services system failure.”
“Travelers described chaos at major London airports, hours long lines, crowded waits for luggage to be returned and uncertainty over where to spend the night after local hotels were quickly booked.”
“At Gatwick Airport, some travelers reported six-hour waits inside grounded aircraft before they were allowed to leave.”