The chief executive of National Air Traffic Services, Martin Rolfe, said the organisation does not believe a cyber attack caused the software fault that forced mass cancellations at U.K. airports on Tuesday. The finding shifts focus to an internal technical cause as airlines and travellers press for answers after the disruption.
Flight tracker Flightradar24 recorded about 1,300 cancellations to and from U.K. airports on Tuesday, with 177 still listed as cancelled early on Wednesday. Nearly all of those disruptions hit London Heathrow, while Stansted, Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester also saw severe knock-on effects. NATS confirmed a technical problem shortly before 2 p.m. local time and said services were restored by 7:30 p.m., but delays persisted into Wednesday because aircraft and crews were out of position and staff reached shift limits.
Rolfe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, "We have at this point ruled out cyber, we don't believe it was a cyber attack." He added, "I don't believe we've ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we've never seen in 50 years of operation." Rolfe said NATS accepts responsibility for the disruption and pledged a very thorough and full investigation.
Airlines responded sharply. Neal McMahon, chief operating officer of Ryanair, described the outage as an "abhorrent" failure that affected families and business travellers and criticised NATS for charging airlines and passengers more while delivering a worse service, adding, "Following the 2023 collapse, we were told lessons would be learned... Yet here we are again." A Wizz Air spokesperson said the carrier was "extremely disappointed that another NATS technical failure has caused widespread disruption across the U.K. aviation network."
NATS provides air traffic control for 15 U.K. airports and manages the nation's upper airspace used by commercial jets, handling around 2.5 million flights a year. The organisation has suffered two other significant outages in recent years: a radar technical issue in July 2025 that led to more than 150 cancellations, and a multi-day collapse in August 2023 tied to a flight plan processing sub-system.
Passengers due to travel on Wednesday were urged to check directly with their airlines for updated information. NATS says it will investigate the root cause of Tuesday's software fault, while carriers and travellers await the outcome and any operational or governance responses that may follow.
