Can I still claim compensation for the NATS outage?

Not the fixed cash payment, in almost every case. That payment is the airline’s to make when the delay was the airline’s fault, and this one was not: a NATS flight-processing failure stopped arrivals across the UK. What you can still claim is a refund for flights you did not take, a seat on the earliest alternative, and the money you actually spent on meals, a hotel and getting to it. Those are owed whatever caused the disruption.

Does UK261 still apply to my flight?

Yes. The regulation covers the flight, and it is what gives you the refund, the re-routing and the meals and hotel. The only part that drops out is the fixed per-passenger sum, because the cause sat outside the airline. Saying the regulation does not apply would cost you the three things that do.

How much can I claim for a hotel and meals?

What you actually spent, within reason. There is no tariff and no daily cap, so nobody can tell you a number in advance. Keep the receipts, or a card statement if the receipts are gone, and ask for that figure. A five-star suite when there was a Travelodge across the road is the kind of thing an airline will push back on.

My flight was on 9 September, not the 8th. Does this cover me?

Very likely, yes. The system came back on the Tuesday evening but the aircraft and crews were in the wrong places, and cancellations carried into Wednesday. A Wednesday cancellation caused by the Tuesday failure is the same event, and the same rights follow it.

Flight disruption

NATS outage, 8 September 2026: what you can still claim

Air traffic control stopped working on Tuesday afternoon and around 1,750 flights were cancelled. Heathrow and Gatwick took the worst of it. Here is the honest version of what you can get back, and the one thing you probably cannot.

Last reviewed: 9 September 2026 by NoReply Editorial

What you can still claim

The fixed cash payment is off, because the cause was air traffic control, outside the airline.

You can still get a refund, a new flight, or your hotel and meals back.

In legal terms that is Article 5(3) taking away Article 7, and leaving Article 8 and Article 9 exactly where they were. You do not need to say any of that in your letter. It is the name of the rule, not the reason.

The regulation still covers your flight. That matters, because it is the regulation that gives you the refund, the seat on the next flight and the money for the night you spent near the airport. What drops out is one part of it: the fixed per-passenger sum of £220, £350 or £520 that an airline pays when the delay was its own doing. Nobody should tell you the rules stopped applying, and nobody should tell you to chase the £520 either.

What do you need?

Get my hotel and meals back I want a refund Put me on another flight I'm still stuck

Each one starts a letter dated to the outage. No account needed to read it, and it never asks the airline for the fixed payment.

Start with your flight number

We do not look the flight up. We write the letter for it.

Still stuck today? Today’s cancellations board covers flights leaving now.

What happened on 8 September

On the afternoon of Tuesday 8 September 2026, the system NATS uses to process flights failed. Arrivals into Heathrow and Gatwick were halted. The fault was UK-wide rather than confined to one airport, and it was not a cyber attack. The system was back at around 19:30 that evening.

By then the damage was done. Aircraft and crews were in the wrong places, so cancellations carried into Wednesday 9 September. Cirium counted more than 1,750 cancellations on the Tuesday and more than 153 by Wednesday morning.

British Airways cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights.
easyJet cancelled around 200.
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were delayed, some by up to eight hours. That is the airline’s own figure.

Knock-on disruption was still running on 9 September, so a flight cancelled on the Wednesday morning is part of the same event as the Tuesday failure that caused it.

Which airports were hit

The fault was UK-wide, so this is not a list of the only places affected. It is the list that had been reported by the time this page was written.

Worst hit

Heathrow, Gatwick

Also disrupted

Manchester, Birmingham, Stansted, London City, Edinburgh, Dublin

Named in other reports

East Midlands, Luton, Liverpool, Aberdeen, Belfast, Southampton

If your airport is not named above, that does not weaken your claim. Your rights come from the flight you booked and what happened to it, not from whether a newspaper listed your terminal.

A refund, or a new flight

If your flight was cancelled, this is your choice and not the airline’s. You can take the money back, or you can take a seat on another flight. Being offered a voucher is not the same as being offered a refund, and you do not have to accept one.

A refund

The fare for the part of the journey you did not fly. If only one leg was cancelled, it is that leg. If the whole trip lost its point because you never got there, it is the whole thing, plus a flight back to where you started if you are already part-way.

How much: what you paid for the unused part. There is no fixed sum, and anyone quoting you one is guessing.

A new flight

The earliest alternative to where you were going, at the airline’s cost. If its own flights are full for three days and another airline is flying tomorrow, the earliest alternative is the other airline. Airlines do not volunteer this. Ask for it in writing.

How much: not a cash figure at all. It is a seat.

The legal name for both of these is Article 8. It is worth knowing only because it is what the airline’s own complaints team will call it.

Hotel, meals and transport

This is the part that gets forgotten, and on a disruption like this one it is usually worth the most. It does not depend on whose fault the delay was. The airline owes it because you were stuck, full stop.

Meals and drinks

Once the delay reaches two hours on a short flight, three hours on a medium one of 1,500 to 3,500 km, or four hours on a long-haul. The airline should hand out vouchers. When it does not, buy what you reasonably need and claim it back.

A hotel, and getting to it

If you were stranded overnight, the airline owes the room and the transport between the airport and it. Book something sensible if nobody arranges it for you, and keep the booking confirmation.

Two calls or emails

You are also owed the cost of two phone calls or emails, which matters less than it did in 1991 but is still yours.

How much: your receipts. Reasonable actual spending, with no tariff and no cap. That means nobody can promise you a figure, including us, and it also means an airline cannot hand you a fixed allowance and call it settled. Keep the receipts, or the card statement lines if the receipts are gone.

The legal name for this one is Article 9.

Why the fixed payment is off

The fixed payment exists to make airlines carry the cost of their own failures: their crew, their aircraft, their planning. When something outside the airline stops the flight, it does not have to pay it. Air traffic control going down is the clearest example there is. The airline had a plane, a crew and a passenger, and was told it could not fly.

The legal name: Article 5(3) extraordinary circumstances. A NATS flight-processing failure falls in the same class as an air traffic control restriction, and the fixed sums are the ones in Article 7, £220, £350 or £520 by distance and delay.

The one exception

If your delay kept going after air traffic control was working again, and the reason was something the airline controlled, its own crew or its own aircraft, then the fixed payment can be back on the table for that later stretch. Do not assume this happened. If it did, say what happened and when, and ask the airline to set out in writing where it draws the line between the outage and its own decisions.

A letter that opens by demanding £520 for this outage gets a template refusal quoting Article 5(3), and the conversation ends there, along with the refund and the hotel bill you had not got round to asking for. That is the practical reason the order of your letter matters.

Who to write to

The airline that was operating your flight. Not NATS, which does not have a passenger claims process. Not the airport. And not the Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates airlines but does not pay individual cases.

British Airways customer relations, at customer.relations@ba.com.
easyJet takes claims through its own complaints and claims form on easyjet.com, which is faster than email because it asks for the flight details up front.
Ryanair also uses a form on its own site for delay, cancellation and expense claims.

Put the flight number, the date and the booking reference where they can be seen. A complaint that can be matched to a booking in one read gets answered first, and that is not a trick, it is just how a queue of thousands gets worked through.

British Airways contacts easyJet contacts Ryanair contacts Wizz Air contacts

If they ignore you

Give the airline eight weeks, or take its final answer if it comes sooner. After either of those, a free independent scheme can look at the case: AviationADR or CEDR, depending on which one your airline belongs to. It is free to you and the decision binds the airline.

Not first, though. A scheme will send you back to the airline if you have not given it a chance to answer, and you will have lost weeks.

How aviation ADR works, step by step

Questions people are asking

Can I still claim compensation for the NATS outage?: Not the fixed cash payment, in almost every case. That payment is the airline’s to make when the delay was the airline’s fault, and this one was not: a NATS flight-processing failure stopped arrivals across the UK. What you can still claim is a refund for flights you did not take, a seat on the earliest alternative, and the money you actually spent on meals, a hotel and getting to it. Those are owed whatever caused the disruption.
Does UK261 still apply to my flight?: Yes. The regulation covers the flight, and it is what gives you the refund, the re-routing and the meals and hotel. The only part that drops out is the fixed per-passenger sum, because the cause sat outside the airline. Saying the regulation does not apply would cost you the three things that do.
Who do I claim from, the airline or NATS?: The airline that was operating your flight. Not NATS, not the airport, and not the Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates airlines but does not pay individual passengers. If your flight was sold by one airline and flown by another, it is the one that was flying it.
How much can I claim for a hotel and meals?: What you actually spent, within reason. There is no tariff and no daily cap, so nobody can tell you a number in advance. Keep the receipts, or a card statement if the receipts are gone, and ask for that figure. A five-star suite when there was a Travelodge across the road is the kind of thing an airline will push back on.
My flight was on 9 September, not the 8th. Does this cover me?: Very likely, yes. The system came back on the Tuesday evening but the aircraft and crews were in the wrong places, and cancellations carried into Wednesday. A Wednesday cancellation caused by the Tuesday failure is the same event, and the same rights follow it.
What if the airline then made things worse?: That changes the answer, and it is worth saying if it happened. If your delay carried on after air traffic control was running again because of something the airline controlled, its own crew or its own aircraft, the fixed payment can come back into play for that later stretch. Say what happened and when, and ask the airline to set out in writing where it draws the line.

Get it written

Tell us the airline, the date and what happened. We date the letter to the outage, ask for the refund, the seat or the receipts, and leave the fixed payment out of it. You can read the whole thing before you decide anything.