A technical issue at the National Air Traffic Services centre in Prestwick disrupted flights across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England on Monday, adding fresh pressure to Britain's air-traffic infrastructure.

The Associated Press reported that NATS said the issue at its Scottish centre had been fixed, but that the effects would continue through the day. Manchester, Belfast International, Edinburgh and George Best Belfast City airports were among those reporting the most disruption.

NATS said airports south of Manchester, including London's main airports, were broadly unaffected. It apologised for the disruption and said engineers were working to lift air-traffic regulations safely and reduce the knock-on effect for passengers.

The fault arrived less than two weeks after a separate problem caused widespread disruption and around 2,000 cancellations across the country. NATS said Monday's incident was unrelated to that earlier software defect.

That distinction may matter technically, but passengers experience the incidents as one question: how resilient is the system they depend on? The immediate investigation concerns Prestwick. The wider political issue is whether repeated failures will prompt a deeper review of Britain's air-traffic-control architecture.