The head of the UK’s air traffic control company is facing calls to resign after the second disruption to flights in two years due to technical problems.
Hundreds of flights were delayed after the air traffic control (ATC) system went down for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.
Nats, the company that runs the system, blamed a technical problem and said it had now been resolved. The problems raised fears of a repeat of chaos at airports in August 2023 when hundreds of thousands of passengers’ flights were delayed or cancelled.
British Airways said it was forced to restrict the number of its inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow to 32 an hour until 7.15pm. It said the flow rate would then return to the usual level of 45 an hour.
It is understood that the UK National Cyber Security Centre does not view it as a hacking incident.
Ryanair called for the Nats chief executive, Martin Rolfe, to resign or be fired. The airline’s chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, said: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of Nats.
“Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted. It is clear that no lessons have been learned since the August 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “While passengers should continue to check with individual airports for advice, Nats have confirmed their systems are now fully operational and flights are returning to normal.
“We are working closely with Nats to understand the cause of the technical issue and the implications for the resilience systems in place.”
The department noted the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, does not have any direct control over Nats and has no powers on staffing decisions.
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