UK air traffic control provider NATS restored its radar system on Wednesday evening after a technical failure forced controllers to restrict take-offs and landings nationwide for about 20 minutes, grounding aircraft at Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester airports. Although the malfunction was brief, its knock-on effects were significant. Data firm Cirium counted at least 84 departures and 71 arrivals cancelled on Wednesday, while NATS and airport websites put the total disruption above 150 flights. Heathrow scrapped a further ten services on Thursday morning as airlines worked to reposition aircraft and crew. Low-cost carriers led the backlash. EasyJet’s chief operating officer David Morgan called the repeat failure “extremely disappointing,” and Ryanair operations chief Neal McMahon urged NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign, accusing the agency of poor resilience. The Department for Transport said it is working with NATS to determine the cause, which officials described as radar-related and not cyber-linked. Engineers have re-enabled the affected equipment and normal traffic levels are expected to resume once displaced aircraft are repositioned. The episode follows previous NATS outages, including a major shutdown in August 2023, and has renewed pressure on the organisation to strengthen safeguards for the peak summer travel season.