NATS rules out cyberattack after UK airport disruption hits India flights

NATS has ruled out a cyberattack after a flight processing system fault disrupted UK airports. The latest collapse has intensified scrutiny of repeated failures and hit flights to and from India.The UK's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of the major disruption that hit airports across the country and affected several flights to and from India. Tens of thousands of passengers were affected after the disruption on Tuesday led to around 2,000 flight cancellations, with the impact continuing into a second day.Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, was among the worst affected, along with Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Manchester. On Wednesday, Heathrow said flights were operating again, but warned that disruption would continue as airlines worked to reposition aircraft and crew."We will be doing a very thorough and full investigation. We have at this point ruled out a cyberattack," NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe told the BBC. "I don't believe we have ever seen an incident happen more than once. This will be something we haven't seen in more than 50 years of operation. I would say the UK has one of the best reputations in the world, both from a safety perspective and resilience perspective," he said.NATS said the problem occurred in its flight processing system and repeated that it was not the same fault as the ones that caused outages and widespread disruption in 2023 and 2025. UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has called Rolfe in for a briefing amid calls for his resignation after the third major air traffic collapse during his tenure. The UK government holds a 49 per cent stake in the air traffic controller. In its statement, Heathrow said: "We apologise to those affected and have extra colleagues across our terminals to support passengers while we work with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations as quickly as possible." Air India said it was among the airlines affected by the technical fault at NATS and had to "divert, delay or cancel multiple flights scheduled to operate to and from UK airports". The airline added: "This may lead to delays in some of our other services, too, as our aircraft and crews are out of position following the disruption... We are closely monitoring the situation and are making every effort to minimise disruptions as much as possible."Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air said NATS was "not fit for purpose", while Ryanair has demanded Rolfe's resignation. In 2023, NATS' main flight plan processing system failed completely, forcing the closure of British airspace to all incoming flights. An official report later found that the failure cost airlines 65 million pounds in diversion costs and passenger compensation claims, and disrupted the journeys of 700,000 people. In July last year, a NATS radar system failed, leaving controllers unable to track aircraft positions. The latest disruption has again put NATS under scrutiny, with thousands of passengers affected, airlines facing delays and cancellations, and airports working to restore normal operations after a fault in the flight processing system.With PTI Inputs- EndsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Sep 9, 2026 15:02 IST