Bizav Traffic Impacted by UK Air Traffic Control Failure

Many business aviation flights were affected yesterday by the serious disruption to air traffic control services in the UK, which triggered several thousand airline flight cancellations and delays at multiple airports. Flight data group Cirium reported that almost one-third of all movements at the UK’s main airports were canceled yesterday, with operations slowly recovering today.

According to Sean Raftery, senior director of international business with flight support group Universal Aviation UK, many business aviation flights were canceled and others were delayed by up to five hours. He told AIN that operators of aircraft at London Biggin Hill Airport for the Air Charter Expo yesterday were faced with canceling departures or accepting very long delays.

According to UK air traffic services group NATS, a cybersecurity breach was ruled out as a possible cause of the widespread technical failure. NATS CEO Martin Rolfe said a technical problem had been identified and its resolution took “longer than hoped.”

Acknowledging some impact on traffic at the London-area Farnborough Airport, a spokesperson told AIN that the privately owned facility had been well placed to respond to the airspace disruption. “Unlike commercial aviation hubs, where canceled flights often represent completely lost capacity, business aviation allows for dynamic rescheduling, enabling our clients to complete their journeys with minimal long-term impact,” they said. “This agility underscores the critical role business aviation plays in keeping traffic moving, even during widespread infrastructure disruptions.”

Other leading UK FBOs, including Harrods Aviation, did not respond to requests for further information on the scale of disruption to their clients. The owners of Biggin Hill Airport (EGKB) also declined to comment.

“The glitch was fixed, and things are stabilizing, but there is a knock-on, particularly with large numbers of commercial jets in the wrong place,” Raftery explained. He said some of Universal’s own staff have been stranded by the widespread flight disruption that saw UK-bound travelers trapped at their departure airports in other countries.

In August 2023, a software failure at NATS resulted in 1,600 flight cancellations after a data anomaly triggered failures in both the primary and backup flight planning systems. UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander has told Rolfe to conduct a full investigation into the latest ATC failure and report back within a week. The Civil Aviation Authority has separately said it expects NATS to provide a full report on the incident, after which it will consider whether further measures are needed.