A huge technical failure that caused flights to be grounded across the UK, including at Gatwick and Heathrow Airport, has sparked fears of a cyber attack. Airlines are attempting to restore normal operations after an air traffic control (ATC) fault caused major travel disruption on Wednesday afternoon. The glitch impacted flights right across the country, with British Airways warning that “the vast majority” of its flights were affected and Birmingham Airport saying that “departing flights from many UK airports have been suspended”.
The number of aircraft allowed to fly in England and Wales was also restricted in response to the glitch. While ATC provider Nats said it was “in the process of resuming normal operations”, the incident has raised fears among online commentators of a cyber attack targeting Britain’s transport network. “Is this just a glitch, or something more sinister like a cyber attack?” one X user asked.
Others suggested that an alleged cyber attack could have been carried out by Russia, following the grounding of the country’s Aeroflot airline by a pro-Ukraine group on Monday.
“Cyber attack?” one person said. “Aeroflot were grounded earlier in the week.” A third added: “Cyber attack was my first thought.”
The technical glitch, which Nats said had now been “restored”, was thought to have been linked to the provider’s control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire.
Budget airline Ryanair has called on Nats’ chief executive Martin Wolfe to resign following the fault, claiming that “no lessons have been learnt” since a system outage in August 2023.
“It’s outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of Nats,” Ryanair’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon said.
“Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted.
“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the Aug 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.
“If Nats CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest Nats system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK transport minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of Nats’ shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent Nats failures.”
Over 700,000 passengers were impacted by major travel disruption after flights were grounded at UK airports following a technical glitch on August 28, 2023.