Airlines criticise air traffic control as second glitch causes more disruption

Airlines have criticised the UK's air traffic control system after a second technical problem in two weeks caused major disruption to UK flights

EasyJet said Monday's incident "once again calls into question the resilience" of how the service works, while Wizz Air said there was a "national confidence crisis" in National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which runs the UK's air traffic.

The technical problem at Prestwick in Ayrshire caused disruption at airports across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, delaying more than 200 flights.

Nats said a "connectivity issue" was to blame for the disruption, and that it had "nothing to do" with a separate software defect at Swanwick that led to the cancellation of 2,000 flights earlier in September.

The underlying issue causing Monday's disruption has since been resolved, with Nats saying it was running at "full capacity" although officials warned of knock-on effects.

A spokesperson said they were now "focused on working with our customers to recover their residual delays and help get their operations back to normal".

Preliminary data from aviation analytics company Cirium, found at least 117 departing flights and 110 arrivals had been cancelled.

Easyjet was the worst affected airline, with 47 of its 670 scheduled departures cancelled, while British Airways has seen 12 cancellations from its 513 scheduled departures.