Pressure mounts on UK air traffic control boss after Scotland and northern England flights disrupted AGAIN
From the Newshound archive · first published 22 September 2026.
The head of UK air traffic control is facing calls to act after flights across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England were delayed on Monday in a separate disruption to the chaos that crippled America's East Coast airports the same day. The UK incident is the latest in a string of failures prompting airlines to demand urgent reform. Meanwhile, over 1,000 US flights were cancelled and more than 5,600 delayed after construction workers accidentally severed a backup fibre-optic cable at a rail site between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey.
The cut cable knocked out the FAA's Philadelphia radar control facility, grounding flights at JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia, Boston Logan and Teterboro for most of Monday.
Newark saw no commercial landings for nearly eight hours, from 9:40am to after 5:20pm local time, with Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney missing a UN General Assembly side event.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the cable was repaired by Monday evening but warned delays would persist, saying the chaos underscored the need to modernise ageing infrastructure.