Airlines battle to recover operations after air traffic control glitch

Ryanair has called for Nats’ chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign in the wake of the fault, claiming 'no lessons have been learnt' since the August 2023 system outage.

A plane landing at Gatwick Airport. File picture

Airlines are attempting to recover their flight operations after an air traffic control (ATC) fault caused major disruption on Wednesday afternoon.

Thousands of passengers have been affected, with many likely to continue facing issues with their journeys.

ATC provider Nats said its systems are “fully operational” and that air traffic capacity is “returning to normal” after the technical glitch affected flights across the UK following restrictions on the number of aircraft which could fly in England and Wales.

Nats is working with airlines and airports to clear the backlog of flights now that departures at all airports have resumed, the company added.

Ryanair called for Nats’ chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign in the wake of the fault, claiming “no lessons have been learnt” since the August 2023 system outage.

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 learnt since the August 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.” 

More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28 2023 when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.

Mr McMahon continued: “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 issue on Wednesday left many aircraft and flight crew out of position.

While it was ongoing, British Airways (BA) said the problem was “affecting the vast majority of our flights”, while Birmingham airport said “departing flights from many UK airports have been suspended”.

Several flights scheduled to arrive at UK airports were forced to conduct holding patterns or divert elsewhere.

In an update, BA said that the number of its inbound and outbound flights at Heathrow is restricted to a total of 32 per hour until 7.15pm before the flow rate returns to the usual level of 45 per hour.

British transport secretary Heidi Alexander said: “I am aware of a technical issue which impacted Nats’ operations causing travel disruption this afternoon.

“I have been informed systems have now been restored but continued disruption is expected, and passengers should check with individual airports for advice.”