Heathrow Disruption Sparks NATS Probe After Massive Flight Cancellations

London Heathrow Airport experienced one of its worst disruptions in recent years on Tuesday, with 1,300 flights canceled from U.K. airports—nearly all at Heathrow—as a technical issue in the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) system led to widespread cancellations. By early Wednesday, 177 additional flights had been canceled, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded. While the problem was identified shortly before 2 p.m. local time, it was not resolved until 7:30 p.m., leaving a backlog of delayed aircraft, crews, and operations that persisted into Wednesday. NATS, which manages air traffic for 15 U.K. airports—handling 2.5 million flights annually—took full responsibility for the disruption, emphasizing that such incidents are handled only when systems cannot be fixed quickly to ensure safety in flight.