Air traffic control chaos - live: Manchester and Belfast flights among hundreds delayed

Air traffic control issues have disrupted hundreds of flights across the UK again today with at least 200 cancelled and one airport's chief executive warning problems could last into tomorrow.

Air Traffic Control provider NATS experienced a "technical issue" earlier today affecting airspace in northern and central England, as well as in Scotland and Northern Ireland. While the glitch has now been fixed there are still delays and cancellations and passengers have been advised to check flight details with their airlines.

Manchester , Newcastle, Bristol, Norwich, London City, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Inverness airports continue to be affected. Edinburgh Airport CEO Gordon Dewar said: "Potentially this could ripple through to tomorrow as well."

The latest meltdown comes just weeks after thousands of UK flights were grounded by another air traffic control glitch. NATS said a defect in software, which allocates codes so air traffic controllers can identify flights on radar, was behind the decision to cancel those flights. "This happened in the space of a millisecond," a report said.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has acknowledged how "deeply frustrating" the latest NATS IT outage will be for airline passengers. Ryanair has again called on NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign.

In a statement published today the UK Civil Aviation Authority has said passengers facing disruption after the latest Nats technical issue are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation”.

In the statement the body said: “We know many passengers have faced disruption and frustration following a technical issue at NATS Prestwick centre in Scotland on Monday 21 September, and we understand the impact this has had on their travel plans. We have reminded airlines of their responsibilities to look after passengers whose flights have been delayed or cancelled.

“We consider that disruption caused by the technical issue at NATS Prestwick centre in Scotland on 21 September is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules. This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.”