Airlines are demanding answers from air traffic control provider Nats after a technical fault cancelled hundreds of flights on Wednesday, with disruption continuing into Thursday.
Passengers trying to fly both in and out of the country were still expected to face disruption on Thursday as airports dealt with the backlog.
Some flights were cancelled or delayed at Heathrow or Gatwick airport in the morning, although it was not clear if this was directly related to Wednesday’s glitch.
EasyJet’s CEO, David Morgan, said it was “extremely disappointing” to see air traffic control fail “once again”, disrupting passengers.
He was referring to a previous technical fault at Nats (National Air Traffic Services) in August 2023 that grounded flights across UK airports and affected more than 700,000 passengers.
“While our priority today is supporting our customers, we will want to understand from Nats what steps they are taking to ensure issues don’t continue,” Morgan continued.
Meanwhile, Ryanair’s CEO Neal McMahon didn’t hold back any punches, calling for Nats boss Martin Rolfe to resign, claiming “no lessons have been learnt” since the major system outage in 2023.
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.
“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.”
“If Nats CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest Nats system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK transport minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of Nats’ shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent Nats failures.”
The Liberal Democrats called for a full investigation into the glitch.
The party’s leader Sir Ed Davey said: “It is utterly unacceptable that after a major disruption just two years ago, air traffic control has once again been hit by a technical fault.
“With thousands of families preparing to go on a well-earned break, this just isn’t good enough. The government should launch an urgent investigation to ensure the system is fit for purpose, including ruling out hostile action as a cause.
“The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said the department is “working closely” with Nats to understand the cause of the glitch and the “implications for the resilience systems in place”.
The “technical issue” responsible for the disruption was at Nats’ control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, according to the company.
It first announced problems at around 4pm on Wednesday, and in an update an hour later, said systems were fully operational and that departures had resumed at all airports.
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