The head of UK air traffic control company Nats is facing calls to resign after a second technical disruption in two years caused hundreds of flight delays on Wednesday. The system went down for about 20 minutes, restricting aircraft movements and raising fears of a repeat of the August 2023 chaos that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Ryanair's chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, demanded that Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe resign or be fired, citing 'continued mismanagement' and incompetence. He urged Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to remove Rolfe and reform the 'shambolic' service. However, the Department for Transport noted Alexander has no direct control over Nats or staffing decisions.
British Airways restricted inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow to 32 per hour until 7.15pm, down from the usual 45. The National Cyber Security Centre does not view the incident as a hacking attack. Nats confirmed the issue was at its control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and said engineers had restored the system by around 5pm.
Airports advised passengers to check with airlines for updates, with Liverpool John Lennon Airport warning of possible delays. Several flights were forced to hold or divert. The disruption comes after a major outage on 28 August 2023, when a technical glitch grounded flights and affected over 700,000 passengers.
