Air traffic control centre 'technical issue' disrupts flights two weeks after NATS failure sparked Heathrow and Gatwick chaos

Flights are being disrupted in Scotland and northern England because of a “technical issue” at an air traffic control centre, National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said on Monday. A Nats spokesman said: “Our engineers are continuing to investigate the issue at our Prestwick centre in Scotland.“Airports south of Manchester are broadly unaffected, however flights heading north and flights departing Scottish airports are currently subject to some delay.“Passengers should check with their airlines. This is unrelated to the issue two weeks ago. We apologise for the disruption.”In a message on its website, Highlands and Islands Airports Limited said flights were disrupted across all the airports the company operates.These include Dundee, Inverness and Islay.The statement said: “Due to a technical issue at Prestwick, flight schedules are currently being impacted across all our airports. Please contact your airline for the latest flight information.”EasyJet has said the latest flight disruption “calls into question the resilience of Nats’ systems” after two air traffic control problems within one month.The airline said in a statement: “A Nats air traffic control system failure in its Prestwick centre is causing delays to flights with some unable to operate.“This, once again, calls into question the resilience of Nats’ systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures.“We will do all we can minimise the impact of this for our customers and advise anyone due to fly today to check our flight tracker for the latest information.”