Air traffic control failure disrupts flights in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England
UPDATE: ‘Technical issue’ has been fixed, according to UK transport secretary. An air traffic control failure has disrupted flights in parts of the UK, about two weeks after a software glitch caused widespread flight chaos in the UK.
A number of departing and arriving flights at Scottish airports have been severely delayed, with disruption affecting Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.
The technical fault has been reported at National Air Traffic Services (Nats)’ second control centre, at Prestwick in Scotland.
NATS said the issue is unrelated to the problems earlier this month, when more than 2,000 flights were cancelled to and from the UK due to a NATS software glitch, disrupting travel plans for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Some flights at Manchester Airport are delayed as a result this morning. EasyJet and British Airways issued messages to passengers that they may face delays.
In a statement, a Nats spokesperson said:
Closing summary
Crude oil prices have fallen a lot today, with Brent crude sinking 3% to $100.79 a barrel, down $3.14 a barrel.
Wall Street has opened higher, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 1%, as expected, amid new optimism around artificial intelligence and trade, after US and Chinese officials held “constructive” talks in New York, according to both sides. They came ahead of a summit n Thursday between US president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping in Washington.
European stock markets have bounced between 0.6% (UK) and 1.4% (Italy), while government bond yields have retreated from Friday’s highs, as lower oil prices raised hopes of less inflationary pressures.
Our main story: Flights have been disrupted in parts of the UK after National Air Traffic Services was hit by its second technical issue in a fortnight.
A number of departing and arriving flights were severely delayed and dozens cancelled on Monday with disruption affecting Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.
The fault was reported to have occurred at Nats’s second control centre, at Prestwick in Scotland and fixed by about 10.30am.
Airlines including British Airways and easyJet reported immediate cancellations. A total of 35 flights have so far been cancelled across UK airports, according to the analysts Cirium.
The failure came less than two weeks after a major incident at Nats control centre in England disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers, and only three days after the release of an initial report into that incident by Nats promising to “continually improve the critical service we provide”.
A Nats spokesperson said:
Jason Geall, executive Vice President, global SME at American Express Global Business Travel, said:
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care! – JK
Labour has been warned its “skills revolution” to tackle youth unemployment risks failure, after its flagship apprenticeship scheme enrolled only 160 young people in its first eight months, our economics correspondent Richard Partington reports.
The shortfall, highlighted in a report by the Fabian Society, leaves the government well off track of achieving its ambition of 30,000 “foundation apprenticeship” starts by the end of this parliament.
As part of plans to tackle the nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training (Neet), Labour announced in May last year what it called “radical skills reforms”, including the proposals for foundation apprenticeships.
These posts are paid jobs for young adults with attached training for a minimum of eight months. However, official figures show there have been only 160 such starts between August 2025 and April this year.
About 308,000 people have enrolled into an apprenticeship of any kind in England in the academic year so far, according to the official figures, an increase of 9% from the same period a year earlier. More than half of all apprenticeships are taken up by over-25s, while under-19s accounted for a fifth of all starts.
We’d like to hear from employers who have taken on apprentices. What has your experience been like? Have apprentices benefited your organisation? What have been the biggest challenges? What changes or government support would encourage you to offer more apprenticeship opportunities?
If you’ve decided not to recruit apprentices or would like to take on more than you currently do, we’d also like to hear why. What barriers have you faced? Are funding, costs, administration, training requirements or finding suitable candidates making it difficult?
Novo Nordisk shares slide; has shed 13,000 jobs in past year
Novo Nordisk shares fell sharply as the Wegovy maker’s boss set out turnaround plans and faced tough questions from analysts over its pricing power and dealmaking strategy ahead of looming patent expiries.
The Danish company’s share price is still down 5.2% in Copenhagen this afternoon.
The success of its Wegovy and Ozempict shots made it Europe’s most valuable company in 2024, but since then the shares have plummeted, as Novo lost market share to US rival Eli Lilly, the maker of diabetes medicine Mounjaro and obesity drug Zepbound.
Novo intends to launch more than five blockbuster drugs by 2030 and deliver more than 150 billion Danish crowns (£17.2bn) in annual sales in 2035, chief executive Mike Doustdar said at the drugmaker’s investor day in London.
The company is scrambling to reassure markets that it can navigate patent expiries for semaglutide — the active ingredient in its anti-obesity drug Wegovy and diabetes medicine Ozempic — in the early 2030s. This means that generic drugmakers can make cheaper versions of the blockbuster drugs.
Novo launched a pill verson of Wegovy in the US at the start of the year, which has been very popular, and went on sale in the UK at online and highstreet pharmacies on 6 July.
Evan Seigerman, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said Novo’s plans “may be underwhelming for investors” as the 3.6% revenue growth was already priced in by the market, leaving the “burden of proof” on management to demonstrate execution.
When Doustdar took the helm about a year ago, he announced 9,000 job cuts and other cost cutting measures, including 5,000 job losses in its home country of Denmark, out of a workforce of 78400. The staff departures have reached 13,000 in total over the past year, the drugmaker said today.
He said the company had the financial firepower to do larger acquisitions rather than just small bolt-ton deals, but would focus on the “quality of the deal” rather than the size.
Doustdar said Novo would become “a larger and more diversified company by 2035”. It intends to launch CagriSema, a next-generation obesity drug, next year.
The ABTA, the trade association for UK travel agents, tour operators and the wider travel industry, has expressed its frustration about the latest travel disruption caused by an air traffic control failure.
It asked the government to consider whether National Air Traffic Services, which is partly state-owned, “should be made to compensate the wider industry for such events”.
Luke Petherbridge, ABTA’s director of public affairs, said:
Fears over interest rate rise and jobs send UK consumer confidence to three-year low
Fears of a steep rise in mortgage payments and increasing job insecurity have sent UK consumer confidence tumbling to a three-month low, according to a leading survey.
In a blow to John Healey before next month’s budget, the S&P Global consumer sentiment index dropped to 42.7 in September from 42.9 in August, indicating “a notable strain on financial confidence across UK households”.
The chancellor could announce tax rises in his first budget to offset the rising cost of government borrowing, which has soared in response to the conflict in the Middle East.
S&P Global said consumers were concerned about the likelihood of an increase in interest rates by the Bank of England. More than 50% of 1,500 respondents said they expected a rise in the cost of borrowing over the next year.
Fixed-rate mortgage costs have already jumped to multi-year highs in the UK, while the threat of artificial intelligence and caution among employers about hiring new staff sent consumer confidence in the jobs market plunging to its lowest level in three-and-a-half years.
The average two-year fixed residential mortgage rate rose to 5.88% on Monday, its highest since 16 April and up from 5.84% last Friday, while the average five-year is at its highest since October 2023, at 5.92%, up from 5.88%, data from Moneyfacts showed.
The rise in mortgage costs is expected to add about £150 to monthly mortgage payments, based on a typical loan of £250,000 over 25 years, since the start of March 2026.
Official figures have shown that the average direct debit to cover monthly mortgage costs has risen over the past four years from about £600 to £900.
Maryam Baluch, an economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said a downbeat mood was spreading across UK households
Scottish first minister says Nats flight disruption is 'very regrettable'
Disruption caused by an issue with air traffic control systems is “very regrettable”, Scottish first minister John Swinney has said.
Speaking to the Press Association during an unrelated visit to Edinburgh airport, the first minister said:
Here are a couple of pics from affected airports.
On the air traffic control issue in parts of the UK, the prime minister’s spokesperson acknowledged that it is “deeply frustrating” for passengers, reports our political correspondent Aletha Adu.
Here’s a round-up of our main stories today:
Airbus to hire up to 900 workers in north Wales
Airbus is expected to hire as many as 900 more workers in north Wales to build its long-range A321 jet, as the aircraft maker invests £150m to ramp up jet production.
The company has a backlog of more than 5,000 of the planes, and will make an initial 480 new hires at its wing production centre in Broughton to help meet soaring demand.
Airbus is understood to be planning a similar number of hires next year at the group of factories, which have about 6,000 people working there.
The move will include restarting production at its West Factory, which used to make the wings for its double-decker A380 jet, but was converted into a warehouse after the company made 1,700 people redundant across its UK sites during the pandemic.
The West Factory will be retooled to build the new aircraft which can fly 240 passengers from the UK to the east coast of the US.
Jerome Blandin, head of Airbus Wing, said:
The investment comes after Airbus said it would also expand a wing factory in Belfast over the next few years to help it build more of its smaller A220 planes.
UK car industry warns locking UK out of 'Made in Europe' would be 'own goal'
Locking the UK out of a new EU scheme to protect industries from Chinese competition would be an “own goal” and risk up to 250,000 jobs in the bloc, the British car industry has warned.
Most of those jobs, 69,000, would be jeopardised in Germany, France and Spain but also in central and Eastern Europe, according to a new study by Oxford Economics commissioned by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
SMMT’s arguments comes days after the chancellor, John Healy, urged EU finance ministers to include the UK in its definition of Made in Europe legislation.
They fear if UK industry is locked out then EU manufacturers may no longer buy British parts for assembly lines.
The government is also warning that it won’t commit to a second EU-UK summit unless Made in Europe is discussed amid fears over opposition in France to including Britain and other countries such as Japan who are warning that their EU bases should be included.
Mike Hawes, head of SMMT, said:
Ryanair calls on Nats CEO to 'resign immediately' or be sacked
Ryanair has stepped up calls on the Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign immediately, or for transport secretary Heidi Alexander to sack him.
This latest Nats failure which is affecting its Prestwick control centre is disrupting flights operating to and from Dublin, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester and a range of airports across Scotland, Northern England, and Ireland.
So far, more than 25,000 Ryanair passengers are expected to be affected, with more than 140 Ryanair flights delayed and delays exceeding three hours.
This latest system failure comes just days after Nats published its preliminary report into the 8 September failure.
Ryanair said:
The report confirmed that the permanent software fix identified following the 8 September failure had not yet been implemented and remained under testing.
Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, said:
Here’s our full story on the flight cancellations and delays in parts of the UK, caused by a technical issue at National Air Traffic Services (Nats)’ second control centre, at Prestwick in Scotland.
It’s the second time within a fortnight that a technical problem in air traffic control has disrupted flights, although this time the impact on passengers appears to be more limited. The issue has been fixed, according to the UK’s transport secretary, Heidi Alexander.
Bitcoin soars through $80,000 to seven-month high
Bitcoin has jumped through $80,000 today, hitting the highest levels since May.
The world’s best-known cryptocurrency hit $84,721 this morning.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at investing and trading platform IG, said:
