Edinburgh ATC IT Failure Shuts Airport December 5

Published on Dec 5, 2025, 8:54 am CST

8 min read

Key points

Edinburgh airport IT failure on December 5, 2025 temporarily halted all flights and forced a morning ground stop
The outage at air traffic control provider Air Navigation Solutions diverted inbound flights and caused cancellations and multi hour delays on key UK and European routes
Flights resumed around late morning but schedules at Edinburgh are expected to remain fragile for the rest of the day
Travelers with same day connections or time sensitive plans should build extra buffer, consider rerouting via Glasgow, and use airline apps for rebooking
The incident highlights ongoing fragility in aviation IT systems following other recent air traffic control and airline technology failures

Impact

Where Delays Are Most Likely: Expect rolling delays and occasional cancellations on flights into and out of Edinburgh Airport through the afternoon and evening, especially on busy UK and European routes
Best Times To Travel: Later evening departures or flights on subsequent days are more likely to run close to schedule once the morning backlog clears
Connections And Misconnect Risk: Same day self connecting itineraries through Edinburgh are risky today so allow generous buffer times or rebook via alternative hubs
What Travelers Should Do Now: Check your flight status frequently, use your airline app or website to rebook if offered waivers, and consider rerouting via Glasgow or other UK airports if arrival time is critical
Onward Travel And Changes: If you have prepaid trains, hotels, or tours, contact providers in advance to adjust times and keep receipts in case airlines offer reimbursement for knock on disruption

The Edinburgh airport IT failure on December 5, 2025 forced Scotland's busiest hub, Edinburgh Airport (EDI), to ground all flights for roughly an hour on Friday morning, leaving aircraft parked on the tarmac and inbound services diverted just as pre Christmas traffic builds. Passengers bound for and from London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Bristol, Dublin, and other cities faced a mix of diversions, cancellations, and multi hour delays as the morning banks fell apart. With operations now resuming, travelers heading to Edinburgh today, or connecting onward through Scotland, should expect knock on delays, add buffer to tight connections, and consider rerouting via Glasgow or other UK hubs if arrival time is critical.

In practical terms, the Edinburgh airport IT failure briefly shut down takeoffs and landings at Edinburgh Airport on December 5 and will leave schedules fragile for the rest of the day, especially for time sensitive connections.

Morning Shutdown And Gradual Restart

Airport officials reported a "localised" IT issue with Air Navigation Solutions, the private provider that runs air traffic control, ATC, operations at Edinburgh. Their statement confirmed that, "due to an IT issue with our air traffic control provider, no flights are currently operating from Edinburgh Airport," and urged passengers to contact airlines directly while engineers worked to restore systems.

Reports indicate the outage began around 830 to 900 a.m. local time, when the airport stopped both departures and arrivals because controllers could not safely manage traffic. Flight tracking data showed an empty radar picture over EDI, with some aircraft holding in nearby airspace and others diverting to Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, and Dublin. Edinburgh confirmed that flights began to resume at about 10:40 a.m., but warned that passengers should still expect disruption while airlines cleared the backlog.

Xinhua and other outlets note that Edinburgh handled about 15.7 to 15.8 million passengers in 2024 across 37 airlines and 155 destinations, so even a short full stop on a busy December morning generates a significant queue of aircraft and displaced travelers. Officials have also stressed that the issue is unrelated to a separate global outage at internet infrastructure firm Cloudflare, which caused problems for other websites and services on the same day.

Routes And Airlines Most Affected

The shutdown is local to Edinburgh, and other Scottish and UK airports are operating normally. However, schedules into and out of EDI on key domestic and European routes have already seen visible disruption. According to live boards and early reporting, flights to London Gatwick, Bristol, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt were among those cancelled outright, while other services to London and Dublin suffered lengthy delays, some in excess of two hours.

A Delta Air Lines overnight service from New York to Edinburgh diverted to Dublin after circling near the Scottish capital, only to find the airport closed while the ATC systems were offline. At least one flight from Manchester was also diverted, and UK media describe passengers "sat on the tarmac" at Edinburgh for extended periods while crews waited for clearance to depart.

Major carriers that feed Edinburgh's domestic and European network, including easyJet, Ryanair, and British Airways, have all seen knock on delays or cancellations, as have transatlantic operators such as Delta and United Airlines. Because Edinburgh operates with a single runway and terminal, there is limited slack in the system when one or two banks of flights are interrupted, so it can take the rest of the day for rotations, crew duty limits, and aircraft positioning to fully recover.

For travelers, that means short haul UK and European flights later today are most likely to face rolling delays, especially if the aircraft operating them were supposed to visit Edinburgh during the outage window. Long haul flights may be less affected once aircraft are in position, but passengers should still expect gate changes, revised departure times, and occasional equipment swaps as airlines patch their networks back together.

Background, Why Aviation IT Keeps Failing

Edinburgh's situation is not completely new. In December 2024, the airport experienced a separate IT failure affecting air traffic control that similarly halted departures and arrivals until engineers restored service. Across the wider UK system, national provider NATS has also suffered several high profile technical incidents, including a meltdown in August 2023 that forced hundreds of flight cancellations, and a radar failure affecting London area traffic in July 2025.

These events highlight how tightly coupled modern aviation is to software and data. Flight plans, radar feeds, safety nets, and runway sequencing all rely on complex IT infrastructure, often with multiple vendors and legacy components. When a single subsystem fails, the safest option is usually to stop traffic until controllers have full situational awareness again. Even when the technical fix takes an hour or two, knock on effects can cascade for an entire day as aircraft, crews, and passengers fall out of their planned slots.

Outside the UK, airlines have faced similar pain. The 2022 Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown in the United States, triggered by a combination of winter storms and legacy crew scheduling software, stranded tens of thousands of travelers and prompted regulatory scrutiny into how carriers manage IT risk. For travelers, the lesson is that IT issues are no longer rare edge cases, they are a recurring operational risk that should be factored into how you plan tight connections and peak season trips.

Practical Guidance For Scotland Bound Travelers

If you are flying into or out of Edinburgh later on December 5, the first step is to treat your booking as fluid. Check your flight status regularly in your airline's app or on its website, not just on generic tracking services, and sign up for push alerts where available. Many carriers open limited self service rebooking options during disruption, which can be faster than waiting in a call center or airport queue.

Travelers with same day connections through Edinburgh should build generous buffer time. That is especially important for self connecting itineraries on separate tickets, where airlines are not obliged to protect you if you miss the onward leg. If missing a meeting, cruise embarkation, or family event is not acceptable, consider rerouting through Glasgow Airport (GLA), Newcastle International Airport (NCL), or larger UK hubs such as Manchester Airport (MAN) or London Heathrow and London Gatwick, even if that requires a train or coach connection into Edinburgh at the end.

For those already in the terminal, resist the temptation to exit security unless instructed, since re screening can be slow when many passengers are rebooked at once. If you have checked baggage and your flight is cancelled, ask your airline explicitly whether bags will be held for rebooked services or returned to the carousel, then plan accordingly. Keep receipts for meals, ground transport, and overnight stays; depending on fare type and applicable regulations, you may be able to claim some costs back.

To understand your rights and options when delays turn into cancellations, it is worth reviewing general guidance on flight delay and cancellation rules before you travel, especially for mixed UK and EU itineraries. Adept Traveler's Guide To Flight Delays And Cancellations walks through compensation rules, rerouting options, and strategies for getting rebooked quickly without waiting in the longest lines.

Looking Ahead

Air Navigation Solutions says the technical issue at Edinburgh has been resolved and that full ATC capability has been restored, while the airport stresses that the problem was confined to EDI and did not affect other Scottish or UK airports. Barring a recurrence, schedules should gradually normalize over the next 24 hours, although Friday's disrupted rotations could still leave a few early gaps on Saturday morning.

This outage also lands in the middle of a difficult holiday period for UK aviation, with dense fog and upcoming Border Force strikes already threatening long queues and sporadic disruption at several major airports. For a broader view of how weather and staffing may affect Christmas season travel in the United Kingdom and Ireland, see our recent coverage in United Kingdom And Ireland, Fog Now, Long Queues At Christmas. Together, these stories point to a winter where travelers should assume tight margins are fragile, and build more slack into their plans than in quieter months.