NATS has today restricted air travel in the UK airspace due to a technical fault, causing them to be unable to process flight plans automatically.
Although these can be processed manually, it is a lot slower and this has forced them to restrict flights while the issue is resolved.
In a statement NATS said "
This morning’s technical issue is affecting our ability to automatically process flight plans. Until our engineers have resolved this, flight plans are being input manually which means we cannot process them at the same volume, hence we have applied traffic flow restrictions. Our technical experts are looking at all possible solutions to rectify this as quickly as possible.
Our priority is ensuring every flight in the UK remains safe and doing everything we can to minimize the impact. Please contact your airline for information on how this may affect your flight. We are sincerely sorry for the disruption this is causing."
Airlines such as Ryanair have taken to social media to advise passengers that this will inevitably result in flight delays and cancellations.
Ryanair says on Twitter "Due to another UK ATC failure, Ryanair will be forced to delay/cancel a number of flights to/from the UK today..."
British Airways have advised passengers who are "travelling short-haul today to not travel to the airport without checking the status of your flight, as it may no longer be operating"
Although NATS are keen to point out that the UK airspace is "not closed" just operating under traffic flow restrictions to prioritise safety.