The British air traffic control service experienced a “technical issue” on Monday, causing delays to flights and significant disruption to air travel in and out of Britain.

“We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety,” the National Air Traffic Service said in a statement. “Engineers are working to find and fix the fault.”

However, later on Monday night Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) said it had “identified and remedied” the technical issue.

“We are now working closely with airlines and airports to manage the flights affected as efficiently as possible. Our engineers will be carefully monitoring the system’s performance as we return to normal operations,” NATS said in a statement.

The European air control agency, Eurocontrol, reported that Britain was experiencing “a flight data processing system failure” with “very high individual delays”.

“Currently there is no indication of when a solution for the failure will be available so no improvements for flights entering UK airspace are foreseen in the near future,” the agency added.

The Scottish airline Loganair warned on Monday on social media that there had been “a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems this morning”.

The Glasgow-based airline said that while it was “hopeful of being able to operate most intra-Scotland flights on the basis of local coordination and with a minimum of disruption, north-south and international flights may be subject to delays”.

NATS was forced to restrict the flow of aircraft on Monday as it works to address a technical issue, it said, with airlines and airports warning of delays and cancellations.

“We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety. Engineers are working to find and fix the fault,” a spokesperson said, adding that UK airspace was not closed.

Earlier Scottish airline Loganair said on social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that there had been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems, warning international flights may face delays.

Airports including London, Luton and Birmingham said they were working to understand the impact.

New York Times News Service and Reuters