Flights at London Heathrow and Gatwick airports were disrupted on Tuesday afternoon after a technical failure affecting the UK’s air traffic control system.
Passengers have been warned to expect delays, with both airports imposing departure restrictions while engineers investigate the problem.
Eurocontrol said some flights from continental Europe bound for Heathrow and Gatwick were being held on the ground because of an “ATC equipment data processing” issue.
The disruption is currently affecting departing flights, while Heathrow said arriving aircraft were not being impacted.
UK air traffic control provider NATS confirmed that it was dealing with a technical issue but did not provide details on the cause of the failure.
A Nats spokesman said engineers were working to resolve the problem and apologised for the disruption.
“We are investigating a technical issue which is causing some disruption to flight departures. Our engineers are on site and we will provide an update as soon as we can,” Nats said.
Passengers have been advised to check directly with their airline before travelling to the airport.
Heathrow confirmed that the Nats failure was affecting departures from UK airports and said it was supporting the local air traffic control team as engineers worked to restore normal operations.
A Heathrow spokesman said: “The air traffic control service Nats is experiencing a technical issue which is impacting departing flights at UK airports. Arriving flights are not currently impacted.”
The airport apologised to affected passengers and said further updates would be issued as more information became available.
The scale and duration of the disruption remain unclear, although restrictions on departures and aircraft being held at European airports could lead to knock-on delays across airline schedules during the afternoon.
