Repeated air traffic control failures leave us in worrying territory
The question is whether all of these incidents were isolated and unavoidable, or whether they point to something more systemic.
To have one air traffic control failure in a fortnight may be regarded as a misfortune, to have two looks like carelessness. The UK's air traffic services provider is coming in for a wave of criticism at the moment, so where is it all leading?
The incident at the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) main control centre in Swanwick earlier this month was extremely serious. It caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations over two days, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. Some were left sleeping on airport floors, others were stranded in foreign airports.
Monday's failure at the Prestwick centre, which looks after air traffic in Scotland, northern England and northern Ireland was not as dramatic. But according to the aviation analytics company Cirium, it still led to more than 200 flights being cancelled and many other delays affecting tens of thousands of travellers.
Easyjet said the latest incident "calls into question the resilience of Nats' systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures."