NATS Prestwick failure, 21 September 2026
The disruption has ended, but the claim deadline has not. You can still file. Last checked 2026-09-22.
A connectivity fault at the NATS centre in Prestwick throttled Scottish airspace on the morning of Monday 21 September and more than 200 flights were cancelled. The CAA said the same day that compensation is unlikely, because an air traffic control failure is outside the airline’s control. Refunds, re-routing and care are owed in full regardless — and those are the claims almost nobody makes.
Twice in a fortnight — does that change anything?
It does not change the classification. A failure inside the air traffic control provider is outside the airline’s control whether it happens once or twice, and the CAA confirmed on 21 September that compensation is unlikely for this one just as it was for 8 September.
What it changes is who you should be aiming at. Article 5(3) is a defence for the airline, not for NATS. NATS is an economically regulated monopoly and the CAA regulates its resilience; a second systems failure in two weeks, on a different site from the first, is a matter for that regulator rather than for your claim form.
And one practical thing does change for you. Because the fault was fixed by mid-morning, a cancellation announced many hours later is harder for an airline to pin on it. The burden of proving the causal link, and of showing it took all reasonable measures to recover, sits with the carrier. That is worth a sentence in your letter.
When
Monday 21 September 2026. The fault hit early in the morning, engineers had it fixed by around 10:30, and the knock-on ran through the rest of the day as airlines recovered aircraft and crews that were in the wrong places.
What failed, and why that decides your claim
NATS described it as “a connectivity issue with part of our systems network, specific to the operation in Scotland”, and said it was not related to the Swanwick failure earlier in the month. Prestwick runs Scottish upper airspace and feeds the transatlantic gates out over the Atlantic, so a restriction there reaches far beyond Scotland. Controllers applied flow regulations — spacing departures and stacking arrivals — to keep traffic inside what the degraded system could safely handle. NATS added: “The issue has now been fixed and we are working closely with airports and airlines to safely remove the remaining air traffic restrictions as quickly as possible.”
Compensation is unlikely — but care is still owed
The fault was inside NATS, not inside any airline. Under Article 5(3) a carrier escapes the fixed compensation if the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided even if it had taken all reasonable measures, and an air traffic control system failure is the textbook case. The UK Civil Aviation Authority said so publicly on 21 September: passengers directly affected are unlikely to be owed compensation. Two things it did not say, though, are where the money actually is — see the table below.
Airports most likely to be affected
- Glasgow (GLA)
- Edinburgh (EDI)
- Aberdeen (ABZ)
- Glasgow Prestwick (PIK)
- Belfast International (BFS)
- Manchester (MAN)
- Liverpool John Lennon (LPL)
Flights departing a UK airport are governed by UK261, at £220, £350 or £520 by distance. A flight from an EU airport into the UK falls under EU261 at €250, €400 or €600 whoever operates it. Belfast is a UK departure; Dublin is an EU one, which matters for the Belfast–Dublin re-routings some passengers were given.
What you are owed
| What you can claim | Does it survive an ATC failure? |
|---|---|
| Fixed compensation for the cancellation | Unlikely — the fault sat outside the airline |
| A refund, or re-routing at the earliest opportunity | Owed in full — your choice, not the airline’s |
| Meals and refreshments while you wait | Owed in full, from two hours of delay |
| A hotel and transport to it if you are stuck overnight | Owed in full, uncapped |
| The cost of care you paid for yourself | Reimbursable against receipts |
Only the first row disappears. Extraordinary circumstances switch off Article 7 compensation and nothing else — Articles 8 and 9 apply whatever the cause, which is exactly why they are the rows worth claiming here. An airline that answers “ATC failure, nothing is payable” has answered a question you did not ask.
What to do, in order
- Work out whether your flight was actually caught by the fault. The restriction ran from early morning until around 10:30, with knock-on through the day. A cancellation late that evening may still trace back to it — but it may also be an ordinary commercial decision, and the airline has to show which.
- Choose refund or re-routing, in writing. Article 8 gives you the choice: a full refund within seven days, or re-routing at the earliest opportunity, or re-routing later at your convenience. An airline that moves you to its next available seat two days out without asking has not met it.
- Claim the care, and keep every receipt. Meals from two hours, a hotel and transport if you are stuck overnight. Uncapped, and owed however extraordinary the cause. If the airline does not arrange it and you pay yourself, that is a reimbursement claim with receipts attached.
- Ask for the reason in writing anyway. One line: “Please confirm in writing the cause of the cancellation of flight [number] on 21 September 2026 and the reasonable measures taken to avoid it.” Article 5(3) puts both halves on the airline, not on you.
- If you are refused and you doubt it, escalate free. UK departures go to the CAA’s approved ADR body for that airline; EU departures go to the national enforcement body of the country you left from. Both are free, and neither takes a percentage.
Where to send it
Claim from the airline that operated your flight, not from NATS and not from the airport. Your contract is with the carrier, and Regulation 261 puts every one of these duties on the operating carrier alone.
The rules behind this
This is the second NATS failure in a fortnight — the 8 September Swanwick failure cancelled around 1,300 flights and the answer was the same. The extraordinary-circumstances guide sets out the test the airline has to meet, and the duty-of-care guide covers the rows that survive it.
Other disruptions we are tracking
- Charleroi airport strike — suspended after 322 cancellations — 16–23 September 2026 — suspended
- easyJet France pilot strike, 24–25 September 2026 — 24–25 September 2026
- Italian airport strikes, September 2026 — 26 and 30 September 2026
- Gatwick assisted-travel strike — suspended — 17–26 September 2026
- Mexico City airport storm and the Air France cancellations — 11–13 September 2026
- UK air traffic control failure, 8 September 2026 — 8 September 2026
The full list, with dates and airports
Sources
This page reports what has been published elsewhere. It is not affiliated with any airline or authority, and the position can change — check your own flight status.