Airlines demand action after new UK traffic

Airlines in the UK have demanded urgent action after another air traffic control issue caused widespread delays, including to 140 Ryanair flights.

Flights have been delayed in Northern Ireland, Scotland and northern England amid an air traffic control issue, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said.

The company said the issue was unrelated to a software fault at NATS on 8 September, which caused more than 2,000 flights to be cancelled, disrupting hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Airports in Belfast, Edinburgh and Manchester were registering delayed flights and urged passengers to check with their airlines.

Luton Airport also said that domestic flights had been disrupted.

A NATS spokesperson said today's incident had been caused by a "connectivity issue" at its Prestwick centre in Scotland, which has since been fixed.

Airlines including Ryanair have previously called for the resignation of NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe after the flight chaos earlier this month.