New NATS glitch causes schedule disruptions

LONDON - "Connectivity issue": Another NATS hick-up causes travel disruptions at northern UK airports. Several flights had to be cancelled or delayed Monday. The new problem had its roots in the Prestwick ATC centre.

For the second time this month, air traffic control issues disrupt air travel in the UK. Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast airports reported delays and flight cancellations along with several smaller airports in Scotland.

"Early this morning (Monday 21 September) we experienced a technical issue at our Prestwick centre in Scotland," NATS said. "To maintain safety, air traffic regulations were applied to manage traffic demand while our engineers investigated."

As the underlying issue has already been fixed "we are working closely with airports and airlines to safely remove the remaining air traffic restrictions as quickly as possible to minimise any further disruption", NATS said.

Earlier this month a glitch in NATS' flight planning systems caused broad disruptions through UK airspace.

The current episode is unrelated. "This was a connectivity issue with part of our systems network, specific to the operation in Scotland," NATS said. "It is nothing to do with the problem we had earlier this month."