The head of the UK's air traffic control company, Nats, is facing calls to resign after a technical glitch caused widespread flight delays on Wednesday, raising fears of a repeat of the chaos seen in August 2023.
The system failure lasted approximately 20 minutes, forcing airlines to restrict flights. British Airways limited inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow to 32 per hour until 7.15pm, down from the usual 45 per hour. Nats confirmed the issue originated at its control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and said systems were restored by around 5pm.
Ryanair's chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, called for Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign or be fired, stating: 'It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe's continued mismanagement of Nats.' He added that if Rolfe failed to resign, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander 'must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe'.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre confirmed it does not view the incident as a hacking attack. A Department for Transport spokesperson said: 'We are working closely with Nats to understand the cause of the technical issue and the implications for the resilience systems in place.'
Liverpool John Lennon Airport warned that remaining flights on Wednesday could face delays, and several inbound flights were forced to hold or divert. The disruption comes after a major outage in August 2023 affected over 700,000 passengers.
