Air Astana flight from Almaty to London diverted to Frankfurt amid disruption at UK airports
Tengrinews.kz — A Kazakh airline has reported that, due to the closure of London Heathrow Airport, an Airbus A321 operating flight KC663 from Almaty to London was diverted to Frankfurt Airport. Dozens of passengers on the flight are not allowed to leave the airport’s transit zone.
There were 138 passengers on board.
“Unfortunately, London Heathrow Airport will remain closed until the end of tonight, and Air Astana has therefore been forced to cancel the onward flight. The departure of flight KC663 has been tentatively rescheduled for 09:25 UTC the following morning (14:25 Astana time),” the airline said in a statement.
It was later revealed that 67 of the passengers do not have valid Schengen visas and are therefore required to remain in the transit area of Frankfurt Airport.
“All passengers at the airport were provided with meal vouchers for food and refreshments during the wait. Ground services and airline representatives at the airport are working around the clock to arrange hotel accommodation for passengers who are permitted to enter the city, as well as to provide food, refreshments and other necessary assistance during the unexpected delay,” Air Astana said.
What happened at Heathrow Airport
Hundreds of flights to and from the United Kingdom were canceled due to a technical failure affecting Nats, the company responsible for air traffic control. Hundreds of flights from British airports were canceled.
All departing flights from London Heathrow Airport were canceled on September 8, 2026, because of the issue. The disruption occurred early Tuesday morning, according to Air Live.
“The departure ground stop took effect at 12:48 p.m. local time (4:48 p.m. Astana time — ed.) after an unexpected system issue disrupted Air Traffic Control (ATC) communications and equipment. Airport management confirmed that all outgoing operations have been temporarily halted while technical teams investigate and work to restore normal systems functionality,” the report said.
The failure occurred shortly after a separate incident had temporarily disrupted arrivals at Heathrow earlier the same day. At 11:07 a.m. local time (3:07 p.m. Astana time), arrivals on runway 27R were suspended following a bird strike. Air traffic controllers quickly redirected all active arrivals to runway 27L to minimize disruption to incoming traffic.
Ground crews inspected runway 27R and reopened it six minutes later, at 11:13 a.m. However, the subsequent air traffic control system failure at 12:48 p.m. caused further delays at the airport, leaving departing aircraft lined up on taxiways while thousands of passengers waited inside the terminals.