PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Air Traffic Control Disruption - 10 September 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Before we come to the urgent question, I must say how disappointing it is that the Government were not forthcoming with a proactive ministerial statement on this matter. The disruption to aviation and the impact on many constituents has been considerable. I hope the Minister and the Treasury Front Bench will pass that message on to the Secretary of State.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if she will make a statement on the failure of the United Kingdom’s air traffic control system and the resulting disruption to flights and passengers.

Good morning, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will ensure that your comments are relayed.

May I begin by again apologising to passengers across the United Kingdom who faced significant disruption as a result of the issues that impacted NATS’s operation on 8 September, resulting in delays and cancellations for hundreds of thousands of passengers, as well as the disruption that it has caused for industry? Let me be clear that disruption of this kind is absolutely unacceptable.

To provide some context to the House, at around lunch time on 8 September NATS experienced an issue with its flight processing system at its Swanwick centre affecting the data that was available to controllers. The disruption had a significant impact across the UK aviation network resulting in widespread delays, cancellations and diversions. NATS worked hard to fix the issue, but that took time as the systems needed to be tested to ensure that they had fully recovered and operations could safely return to normal. My officials were in regular contact with NATS, airlines and airports during the incident to understand the issues impacting them and to offer Government support, such as granting night flight alleviations to support recovery at regulated airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

NATS has confirmed that it was a technical issue and it does not believe it to be cyber-related. The Secretary of State and I met Martin Rolfe yesterday, and we have agreed that he will send a report to us by Wednesday 16 September setting out the cause of the incident and the actions being taken to ensure that this cannot happen again. The Secretary of State has also asked the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an independent review to establish cause and to ensure that our air traffic control systems can get passengers to where they need to be, with an update to be provided to me within six months. We will work closely with both organisations as well as airlines and airports to ensure that lessons are learned and that any necessary improvements are implemented.

This morning, I met representatives from Unite the union to hear directly about the impact of the incident on airport and airline staff and to discuss broader issues with them relating to the abuse of frontline transport workers. I express my and the Secretary of State’s gratitude to all those staff at our airports and airlines who provided support to passengers whose journeys were disrupted over the past few days. Our sympathies remain with all those passengers who have experienced delays to their travel plans or cancellations.

Over 2,000 flights cancelled, with more than 150,000 passengers affected; delays, disruption and pain; embarrassment for Britain—what an absolute mess! As you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, there was no offer of a statement from the Government, hence this urgent question from the Conservative Benches.

Nothing sums up the situation facing real people this week better than Martin Brundle’s scathing post on Tuesday:

“Nine hours and counting sitting on a plane which has travelled nowhere. At a remote parking bay, no food throughout, and mother/baby and a person with a medical condition desperate to get off. As is everyone else. Toilets no longer available as blocked. No sign of steps or buses. And that’s before the wait for luggage. Pathetic and dangerous lack of corporate contingency and responsibility.”

Is the Minister not embarrassed? A report by 16 September, which takes us into recess, and six months then to fully diagnose the problem—that is not good enough. A third failure deserves immediate action, not delaying tactics.

The Government have a considerable say in how NATS operates. Ministers cannot suddenly discover the virtues of arm’s length government when something goes wrong in an organisation of which the taxpayer owns 49%. Passengers have heard before that lessons will be learned, reviews commissioned and improvements made; they do not want another sorry story of apologies and assurances while everyone waits for the next failure.

A cyber-attack has been ruled out, so exactly what did happen? Was it a software failure? Were sufficient engineers available on site? Were previous recommendations actually implemented? If they were, why on earth are we back here again? Why are airlines and airports lacking suitable contingency plans for when NATS fails—when Government fails—and there is no Government support on the ground? The Secretary of State needs to take responsibility, get a grip of this mess and ensure that this time lessons are not simply learned but acted upon.

I thank the shadow Minister for his questions. He asks me for more detail about what exactly happened, given that a cyber-attack has now been ruled out. The disruption was caused by a technical issue in NATS’s Swanwick flight processing system, which affected the processing of flight plans used by data controllers. NATS advises that the problem was affecting the flight processing system and the data that was being fed into controller radar displays. A fix was implemented later in the day, but recovery took time, as NATS needed to test that the system was safe.

The shadow Minister is right to raise the experience of Martin and the other hundreds of thousands of passengers across the United Kingdom who were adversely affected. That raises serious questions about contingency and resilience planning at our airports, and I am determined to have conversations about that with the CAA, NATS, airlines and airports in the coming days.

The shadow Minister criticises the fact that it will take around a week to get the report back. It is incredibly important that we take the time to figure out exactly what happened, because ultimately this is about aviation safety. It is about making sure that the UK can retain its reputation for getting passengers to where they need to go while protecting their safety. He asked about the report coming back over recess; I am happy to return after recess to answer any questions that hon. Members may have about the issue.

There is a broader question about the CAA being asked to conduct an urgent review and report back within six months, and whether that is the right timeline. I remind hon. Members that after the largest recent outage, in 2023, it took two and a half years for the CAA to fully assess the implications and all the technical improvements and requirements that were needed as a result of that incident. It provided 34 recommendations, all of which have been implemented. A six-month timeframe to get to the bottom of what is a highly technical matter and an incident of disruption is proportionate and timely, and will allow us to react quickly, with stringent ministerial oversight.

The shadow Minister asks Ministers to take control of the situation and exercise effective oversight on behalf of passengers—that is exactly what we are doing.

I have noted the Minister’s proactive commitment to a ministerial statement.

I thank the Minister for his statement. NATS used to be in my constituency and then moved down to Swanwick. Of course, with Heathrow in my constituency, I receive—as I mentioned yesterday—a large amount of correspondence from a whole range of other MPs’ constituents, who think I am responsible for Heathrow airport.

Resign!

Can you control these people, Madam Deputy Speaker?

Order. Mr Gemmell!

It was behind me.

Well, that was very well done, then.

It is not a laughing matter—I am sorry for interrupting the flow of the discussion.

It would be useful if the review looked at NATS’s long-term investment plans, particularly since its partial privatisation in 2001, which I opposed.

I thank the Minister for meeting Unite this morning and thanking the workers, who have worked so hard. From my experience, when things go wrong at NATS, the Public and Commercial Services Union members—the technical members—scramble and work incredibly hard to put them right. I hope that we can thank them as well. The Opposition spokesperson never made any reference to the workers themselves. They have worked incredibly hard and, as the Minister said, some of them have experienced horrendous abuse. We should congratulate them and support them in their work.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his constructive question. He is right to ask whether NATS’s resourcing is exactly where it needs to be to ensure that we have the capacity and the right people in the right places to deal with these issues when they arise. I am confident that the fantastic teams of people working at NATS responded with all possible haste and diligence to the disruption that was experienced, and I thank them for doing so.

My right hon. Friend raises broader questions about NATS’s resilience. Part of that is about implementing the large-scale technological transformation programmes that are required to ensure that our air traffic control systems are fit for purpose. More often than not, the UK has a formidable reputation for aviation safety, but that does not mean that when disruption like this occurs, we should not take a cold, hard look at NATS’s processes and see where we can do better.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Speaker’s Office for granting this urgent question. I join the Minister and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in thanking airport, airline and air traffic control staff for handling this incident and helping passengers who experienced such significant disruption.

This is the third major incident in recent years to do with our air traffic control systems. Given the poor passenger experiences, the poor management of the disruption and the poor customer service resulting from it, should the Government not commit to fixing our air traffic control systems before they commit so enthusiastically to massive aviation expansion, which our current systems and processes may not be able to accommodate?

I would like to point out that more often than not, our air traffic control systems and the individuals who work in them provide a safe and effective service for UK air passengers. In a typical year, NATS handles over 2.5 million flights, and around 300 million passengers travel over the UK and across the north Atlantic. We are responsible for a large proportion of European air traffic, and NATS does a good job to ensure that UK passengers get to places safely.

However, incidents like this, and the fact that they have occurred three times within four years, bring home the fact that when disruption occurs, it is incredibly difficult for passengers and for our airlines and airports to adapt to. The hon. Member is absolutely right to say that lessons must be learned. There are technical lessons that must be learned, and that is what we will get to the bottom of through the report from NATS and then the six-month report from the CAA. He is right to raise broader questions. If we are to facilitate what this Government want to achieve, which is an ambitious programme of expansion in our airport capacity, particularly in the south-east of England, we will do so with passenger safety at its heart, and effective oversight of NATS must run to the core of that.

I thank the Minister for his answers, and I am sure he will join me in thanking the management and staff of Manchester airport, who have worked overtime to minimise the disruption to passengers over the last couple of days.

The Minister will be as aware as I am that we are in danger of playing regulatory whack-a-mole here. Less than three years on from the last disruption and the 34 recommendations that followed, we have to ask questions about why those recommendations did not cover the technical issue we face today, and maybe then we will begin to see that we need wider reform of both the CAA, which I am pleased to say is under new management since 2023, and NATS. Are we making progress in vertical take-off and landing and in drone technology at pace? We have seen progress this year in the upper echelons of Scottish airspace, but Manchester airspace and northern airspace are stuck in neutral. These organisations need to show the vision that will allow our aviation sector to remain world-class.

I thank my hon. Friend and predecessor in this role for all his work in holding the CAA and NATS to account and managing some of the difficult conversations following previous disruptions. He raises the valid point that those recommendations were passed on by the CAA and have been implemented in full, and yet we have seen this disruption. Part of this is about us working with the CAA to encourage NATS to go further, faster on some of the technological innovations and transformations he describes. He is right to say that, despite the negativity of the situation, this is a useful opportunity to ask ourselves questions about where we can encourage NATS to go further and push the boundaries in terms of regulatory innovation in the areas he spoke about, such as eVTOL—electric vertical take-off and landing—and drones, and to learn the lessons from this incident and think about how we can build a greater depth of resilience across our UK aviation sector.

NATS falls within my constituency, in Swanwick. May I place on the record my thanks and dedication to the staff of NATS, who I have seen work day in, day out to make our skies safer, and to 78 Squadron Royal Air Force, who are based at the same site?

I must ask the Minister to look seriously at the six-month timescale for the CAA review and to commit to full transparency, to ensure that the lessons learned are not held only in the Department for Transport but are shared more widely with Parliament. In the topsy-turvy world in which we live, I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in asking the Minister to look seriously with the management of NATS at ensuring that, after the third incident in as many years, the long-term investment plans are in place to make sure that this does not happen again and that the management of NATS cannot blame lack of investment for the systems failing.

I thank the hon. Member for representing the staff at NATS so admirably and for his constructive questions. I believe that six months is the right timeframe in which to report back, because it allows us to learn the lessons effectively and get to the bottom of what is ultimately a highly technical matter, but he is right to say that Parliament must engage with the lessons learned. It is also important that we think about the connection between this incident and legislation that is moving through the House. The Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill will give us new powers to give the CAA the ability to set aviation safety rules, enhance air passenger rights and directly enforce consumer rights. Parliament must have its say on how the lessons that we learn from this incident can inform the Bill, so that it practically improves the travelling experience of passengers up and down the country.

I thank the Minister for his statement and for his leadership on this incident. NATS has rightly apologised unreservedly for the incident at Swanwick, which affected, infuriatingly, hundreds of thousands of travellers. Will the Minister join me in thanking the staff of NATS in Prestwick, in my constituency, for their support in the management of this incident?

I thank my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to thank the NATS staff at Prestwick, and across the United Kingdom, for the incredible work that they do. NATS will come under a lot of scrutiny in coming days and weeks—rightly so, because we expect it to maintain a system of air traffic control that keeps the British public safe—but I am resolute in my belief that all the staff at NATS responded with all the haste and diligence that we would expect to protect passengers, and to ensure that aviation could restart safely. Ultimately, that is what we expect of NATS.

This is clearly a very unfortunate incident, and full transparency is essential. Does the Minister have a view on what the overall cost of the incident was to the UK economy? If the Government do not have that figure at the moment, will he update the House on that separately? What plans do the Government have, working with industry, to compensate affected passengers? There will have been all manner of costs borne by those who were unable to fly, and I am sure that collectively, they run into millions of pounds.

While I am not currently in a position to give the hon. Gentleman a pounds-and-pence figure for the economic impact, I am under no illusions about this; it will be incredibly significant. We need to learn the lessons from what has happened to minimise the chance of disruption of this kind ever happening again. He asks me a broader question about compensation or refunds for passengers. Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to assistance from their airlines, including either a refund within seven days or a rerouting to their destination, including through another airline, where appropriate. Passengers may also be entitled to care and assistance while waiting for a delayed or rerouted flight, but we saw lots of incidents of airport capacity not being able to deal with the number of passengers who were disrupted. That is a key lesson that we have to learn from this incident.

I thank the Minister for his statement, and I echo his thanks to the staff who have been working to overcome the incident. Yesterday the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill passed its Second Reading, but as part of the review, and as the Bill progresses, will the Minister commit to looking at how our most vulnerable passengers, particularly wheelchair users and blind or partially sighted passenger, can be supported when they are caught up in incidents like this?

I thank my hon. Friend for his determined advocacy for passengers with disabilities in both our aviation sector and the wider UK transport system. He is right that the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to conduct a review of how to enhance air passenger rights, particularly for those who can face the most acute forms of disruption while travelling, including people with disabilities or other protected characteristics. We need to take a cold, hard look at how some of the most vulnerable people in society are affected by disruption of this nature, and think about how we can strengthen our air passenger rights regime to respond effectively.

Order. Do you need medical assistance, Sir Alec?

I am okay, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will struggle on, thank you very much.

The Minister has outlined that there is an investment programme for technology and upgrades, but with software upgrades, there is always the concern that the premise of the programmes will keep getting changed, and that can bring in delays or bugs to a system. Does the Minister have oversight to ensure that the plans for what needs to be done do not keep getting sidetracked by people deciding, “This is a bit more shiny—we should do that”? That would delay the whole thing, and leave us with what looks like an increasingly antiquated system.

Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, that we have a system of prioritising what we feel as a Department is most important, passing that through the CAA, and down to NATS. The Secretary of State puts together a priorities letter that sets out very clearly her expectations of our air traffic control system, and chief among them, when that was last done, was technological transformation to ensure that our systems are resilient. That recommendation is more pressing than ever, given what we have seen. The Secretary of State and I will both reaffirm that in our meetings with NATS and the CAA, because this incident teaches us that that technological change should be completed with all possible haste.

I thank the Minister for his statement, and for all the work that he is doing to get this situation resolved. Unfortunately, the cancellations impacted some of my Redditch residents yesterday. Will he assure me that he is reminding airlines that they have a continued duty of care to people, and have to get them home as quickly as possible, particularly those who have been stranded far from home?

We are in close dialogue with both airlines and airports, and are reminding them of what needs to be done to protect the welfare of their passengers. Both airline and airport staff and the companies themselves across the country are endeavouring to do the right thing by their passengers who face this disruption. The Department needs to ensure that it is doing its bit, and we will never be shy of fighting for passengers and their rights.

I apologise for the earlier slip, Madam Deputy Speaker.

May I echo the comments about the fantastic job done safeguarding the British public by the staff at NATS? Just recently, I visited air traffic control in our control tower at Edinburgh airport, and I saw at first hand the amount of work that goes into keeping the public safe. However, through the airport, I am acutely aware that there is dissatisfaction with the delays in the new airspace management programme. We have not made progress in Scotland; in fact, we fear that this will be put aside for yet another year. That all feeds into a lack of confidence among the British public and air passengers in our transport system. Can the Minister assure me that steps will be taken to speed up the management, and to ensure that our air passengers get the improved system that they deserve?

I thank the hon. Lady for her challenge. She is right; both Glasgow and Edinburgh airports have ambitious programmes of airspace redesign under way. I reassure her that the Department is committed to working productively with them to ensure that they can realise those airspace change proposals as quickly as possible. That will help us to make our flights more efficient, reduce carbon burn, stop planes idling when they do not need to, and hopefully minimise noise. Scotland is well ahead of other areas in that space, and we need to give it all possible tools, so that it can deliver that important work.

Many passengers and their families across the country will still be wondering whether the disruptions caused by the incident have been fully cleared. Will the Minister confirm the current situation? When does he expect that airports will return to providing the excellent service that they generally provide?

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the issue that caused the initial disruption was fixed as quickly as possible by NATS, but a number of hours then went by, because it needed to ensure that the system was stable when it was rebooted, and that flights could return to the air safely. That is the most important consideration for NATS when it faces disruption of this kind. I can confirm that the congestion we have seen has largely passed through, despite the fact that lots of planes were out of place and needed to be rerouted. It is now up to the Department for Transport, NATS and the CAA to work practically together to ensure that any subsequent congestion is minimised, and that the British public can carry on flying to where they need to go.

Against a backdrop of realism—things just go wrong, no matter how much money is invested in them, or how up to date they are—does it not seem slightly ludicrous that NATS has put all its eggs in one basket? There is no shadow, back-up or secondary scheme that can be used. If there was, it might not be as good as the main one, but it would minimise, or certainly attenuate, disruption. Is it in the Minister’s thinking to put the eggs in more baskets, rather than just relying on one particular bit of software?

The Secretary of State said from the Dispatch Box yesterday that she is of the view that while this disruption was not foreseen, it was not unavoidable, and there are lessons to learn about how we can minimise the chances of this recurring. The hon. Member is right to point to the fact that resilience is clearly not where it needs to be. We need our technological systems to be more adaptive and more reactive. That is exactly why the Secretary of State has said that technological change needs to be at the forefront of the CAA and NATS’ priorities, and agility and the resilience in the system need to be among their top considerations.

As you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, this issue has had a huge impact on my constituency of Harlow. Not only do many passengers use Stansted airport, but over 1,000 members of its staff live in my constituency. I have full faith in the Minister and his ability to lead on this issue, but can he reassure my constituents that he is doing everything he can to hold the leadership of NATS to account and to ensure that this does not happen again, and to ensure that, as the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said, if something like this does happen again, there are contingency plans in place?

The Transport Secretary and I met Martin Rolfe on Wednesday, and expressed our concern about the scale of disruption on behalf of passengers and the industry. The Transport Secretary has asked for the cause of the issue to be identified and addressed as quickly as possible. Scrutiny of both the leadership of NATS and the technological programmes and processes is critical, and is something that the Department will keep at the forefront of our minds in the days and weeks to come.

Does the Minister agree that this incident, and the other ones that preceded it, are a threat to national security? As my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) said, more than 100 RAF personnel are stationed at Swanwick, and are involved in protecting our national interest and our defence. The Minister has not yet addressed the security threat to our country posed by this incompetence.

Allow me to reassure the hon. Member that the civil aviation air traffic control systems and those used by the military and the Ministry of Defence are separate. However, it is right to say that our air traffic control for civil aviation is a foundation of the resilience of our aviation sector, and an enormous amount of economic growth is dependent on that sector functioning effectively, whether that be through air freight, the movement of business travellers to where they need to go, or facilitating the UK tourism industry. That is why it is so important that lessons are learned from this incident, and that we identify how we can minimise impacts on our national resilience in future.

NATS is a significant local employer for my constituents, and I put on record my thanks to the engineers and controllers who worked hard to restore the system and keep passengers safe. However, this is the third such collapse in three years, and all employees who work for NATS, as well as the airports, airlines and passengers who rely on it, deserve better. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that a genuinely effective back-up system is in place, so that we are not back here again in another two years?

I thank the hon. Lady for her work representing her constituents who are employees of NATS. Let me use this opportunity to thank them again for the hard work that they do. However, she is right to say that resilience in those systems is not currently where we need it to be. We never want disruption of this kind to occur, but when it does, we need to use it as a productive lesson on how we can strengthen systems and ensure that when things do go wrong, they are restored as quickly as possible. I am confident that NATS responded to this incident in the shortest possible timeframe, while ensuring that safety was paramount for aircraft, both arriving and departing, but there are lessons to be learned about the contingency plans that need to be put in place, and we will endeavour to learn them.

Just how confident is the Minister that this was not a cyber-attack? How confident is he of the resilience of the system in the event of such an attack, and how confident is he in the willingness and ability of the Government to retaliate in the event of such an attack, as the best form of deterrence?

As the right hon. Member knows, retaliation against cyber-attacks is not an appropriate matter to discuss at the Dispatch Box. However, he raises an important point about our overall resilience and ability to defend against cyber-attacks when they occur. While NATS has confirmed that this was a technical issue—it does not believe it to be cyber-related—I can reassure the right hon. Member that the CAA, NATS, DFT and transport providers work very closely together to defend against cyber-attacks from our adversaries, and any other threats that may emerge.

Any disruption to aviation has an adverse impact on travellers coming from Northern Ireland. Will the Minister give reassurance that when he speaks of contingency and resilience, he includes the Northern Ireland airports—Aldergrove airport in my constituency and Belfast City airport—within that?

Aviation connectivity is perhaps nowhere more important than from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. It is an economic and a social lifeline—I am cognisant of that. I can reassure the hon. Member that retaining resilience with the links from Northern Ireland to the UK mainland is of the utmost importance to me, and I would be glad to speak further to him to think about how we can strengthen those aviation links.

Let me just say quickly to the hon. Member that if he has constituents experiencing particularly thorny issues in engaging with airlines to get the support they need, he is welcome to raise them with me. Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to assistance from their airlines, including either a refund within seven days or rerouting to their destination. The CAA has published guidance on its website stating that delays and cancellations caused by the NATS technical incident are likely to be considered extraordinary circumstances, because they are beyond airlines’ control. That being said, we will think about how we can work with a range of actors, including the airports and airlines, to get the right information to passengers in order to ensure that they can access the support they need.

A constituent has contacted me to say that their shift at an airport was cancelled yesterday due to the problems with the air traffic control system. They were told to not come into work, but they were also told to not expect pay for that day’s shift. Will the Minister confirm that he expects all workers who were due to work at airports yesterday to get paid for that shift regardless?

Let me use this opportunity to restate my thanks to workers across UK airports who have responded to this disruption. I am concerned to hear about the case that the hon. Member raises, and if he writes to me with more detail, I can ensure that the appropriate action is taken.

I thank the Minister for those answers. This has happened three times in three years. Normally, on the third strike, you are out. Instead, the chief executive gets an £871,000 bonus. For people in Northern Ireland, a flight to Great Britain is a basic utility. When NATS crashed, my constituents were entirely cut off. What specific resilience measures is the Minister’s Department implementing to guarantee that Northern Ireland air bridges are prioritised during system recovery? Hard-working families in my constituency who suffered this week are told that they will not get a penny of compensation because the NATS failure counts as an extraordinary circumstance. If such incidents are avoidable, why on earth are passengers carrying the financial burden while NATS avoids accountability?

That is a very fair challenge. Our response to ensure that his constituents get the protections they need is threefold. First, we need to learn the lessons of what has happened, the nature of the technical fault, and to fix it to minimise the chance of it ever happening again. Secondly, there is a broader resilience question about air connectivity from Northern Ireland. I would like to work with him and other Members to think about how that can be strengthened further, but I reassure him that resilience work on that matter is widespread across the Department for Transport and is at the forefront of our minds. Thirdly, there is the question of residents in Northern Ireland being able to benefit from the measures in the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill that are specifically designed to strengthen consumer protections, enhance air passenger rights and make our system of aviation safety more streamlined. I look forward to working with him and other hon. Members on those important issues.