Representative ImageAirHelp, the travel tech company supporting passengers with flight disruptions, has analysed 2025 flight data to identify the aviation events from around the world that have caused the most disruption to UK air travellers so far this year. From infrastructure outages to industrial action, AirHelp studied data on all flights departing from the UK across 2025 - over 610,000 so far – to see which events have had the greatest impact on air travel.
Whilst some events have fallen outside of airline control and therefore are not covered under UK 261, the United Kingdom’s air passenger rights regulation, more than 1.1 million passengers have still been eligible for compensation so far in 2025.
Under UK 261, passengers are entitled to financial compensation if they experience delays of more than three hours, cancellations less than 14 days before departure, or are denied boarding due to overbooking - provided the disruption was not caused by extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline’s control.
Heathrow closure following substation fire
On the night of 21st March, a fire at North Hyde substation caused the closure of London Heathrow airport, one of the busiest hubs in the UK, for almost an entire day. In the day to come, the closure would see the cancellation of all but 10 of the 609 scheduled departing flights.
This mass closure left 99% of all scheduled passengers disrupted, of which 98% UK passengers had flights cancelled completely. Just 1,425 passengers successfully departed on 21st March, despite over 96,800 originally planning to depart from Heathrow on that day.
Flights to the United States, one of the most popular destinations from Heathrow, were some of the worst affected. The data revealed that the top three most disrupted routes from Heathrow to the US (John F Kennedy, LA International and Miami International), saw a 100% disruption and 100% cancellation rate.
National Air Traffic Services centre outage
On 30th July, a "technical issue" at the National Air Traffic Services centre led to flights being disrupted and cancelled at a range of airports including London Gatwick, Birmingham International, Manchester International, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
The result of the outage saw disrupted flights nearly double from 22% on 29th July to 43% on the 30th and 31st of July. This disruption was replicated in terms of passengers affected, as 30th July left 194,000 UK air passengers disrupted nationwide, and over 201,000 on 31st July.
Of the airports involved, London Gatwick was one of the worst affected over the days analysed. A total of 105,700 passengers were disrupted between 30th July and 1st August, with 42,700 travellers and 64% of departing flights disrupted on 31st July alone - the day after the event.
Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, comments: “From infrastructure failures to technical outages and strike action, 2025 has tested the resilience of UK air travel as events such as the Heathrow substation fire and the NATS outage have disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers in such short periods of time. At AirHelp, we’re committed to helping travellers understand their rights and navigate these challenges, ensuring that when disruption strikes, passengers aren’t left powerless.”
