Repeated air traffic control failures leave us in worrying territory</title>

The UK's air traffic services provider, National Air Traffic Services (Nats), is facing criticism for repeated air traffic control failures.

According to Cirium, the incident at the Prestwick centre in Scotland led to more than 200 flights being cancelled and many other delays affecting tens of thousands of travellers.

The first failure this month was attributed to a previously undetected software flaw, which had an impact due to a very specific set of circumstances combining in a millisecond.

Today's issue was blamed on an unspecified The incident at the Prestwick centre in Scotland was attributed to a previously undetected software flaw, which had an impact due to a very specific set of circumstances combining in a millisecond.

Today's issue was blamed on an unspecified 'connectivity issue' specific to the system used in Scotland. The two, Nats says, were unrelated.

But this is becoming worryingly familiar territory.

In August 2023, on a bank holiday weekend, a problem with a single aircraft's flight plan caused a key system at Swanwick to break down, leading to cancellations and delays that affected 700,000 passengers.

Two years later, a smaller 'radar-related issue' disrupted air traffic for four hours, and led to the cancellation of 150 flights.

The question is whether all of these incidents were isolated and unavoidable, or whether they point to something more systemic.

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There is no question that the job Nats has to do is fiendishly complicated, looking after some of the busiest airspace in Europe - including the approaches to Heathrow and Gatwick - which means handling up to 8,000 flights a day.

Visiting the Swanwick centre, it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of the place, where hundreds of staff sit behind an array of large radar screens, calmly making sense of what looks to the untrained eye like utter chaos. But these controllers need reliable equipment, and the concern is that they aren't getting it.

Steve Heapy, chief executive of Jet2 made the point: 'It is simply not good enough for this critical national infrastructure to keep letting customers down.' Easyjet said the latest incident