The head of the UK’s air traffic control firm was called in for a meeting with the transport secretary after a fault left tens of thousands of summer holidaymakers facing grounded flights on Wednesday.
Passengers across Europe were stranded during the peak holiday season when planes were cancelled and diverted – with some turning around mid-air to return to their departure cities – because of a 20-minute glitch.
And Heidi Alexander has held an urgent meeting with National Air Traffic Services (Nats) boss Martin Rolfe to discuss his handling of the chaos.
Ms Alexander said the meeting would help her “understand what happened and how we can prevent reoccurrence”. Following the talks, she said the incident was an “isolated event and there is no evidence of malign activity”.
It comes after Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester airports were among those hit by the outage that left many aircraft and flight crews out of position.
Take-offs for thousands of passengers were cancelled because inbound flights had turned back.
In some cases, travellers were held on planes on the tarmac with no news of when their flight might take off.
The disruption, which began just after 4pm on Wednesday, was down to a “technical issue” at the control centre of ATC provider Nats in Swanwick, Hampshire, the company said. It is understood Nats systems were down for around 20 minutes, with the company issuing an apology to all those affected by the issue.
Flight analytics experts Cirium said that by 5.30pm, 80 flights to and from the UK had been cancelled.
Government sources suggested Ms Alexander will not ask Mr Rolfe to resign, with one saying officials were concerned, but that disruption was limited and flights had largely returned to normal by the end of the day.
But Ryanair immediately called for Mr Rolfe to resign over the chaos caused by the failure.
Chief commercial officer Neal McMahon said he should quit and that, if he does not, Ms Alexander must remove him from his post.
He 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.”
The airline said Mr Rolfe is “out of his depth and must step aside to make way for someone who can do the job properly”. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who has repeatedly called for Mr Rolfe to be fired over his handling of air traffic services, has previously criticised his pay.
He was awarded £1.5m in pay by Nats, which is 49 per cent owned by the government, in the year to March, accounts revealed.
The UK boss of Wizz Air echoed Ryanair’s calls for Mr Rolfe to step down or be sacked, saying if he were the boss of a football club, he would have been removed by now.
Yvonne Moynihan told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “We would question, why are Nats not prepared?
“Airlines are prepared. We have invested billions into our operational robustness to be prepared so that we can bring our passengers to their destinations during the summer season. So why have Nats not?”
Asked whether Mr Rolfe should be forced out, she said: “I mean, if Nats was a football team, I don’t believe that the manager would still be there.”
Easyjet, meanwhile, said it was “extremely disappointed” by the crisis and asked what Nats is doing to ensure it does not happen again.
Chief operating officer David Morgan said: “It’s extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel.
“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.”
Business minister Gareth Thomas was asked on Thursday whether Mr Rolfe would be “fired” over the incident.
He told Times Radio: “The transport secretary is summoning the chief executive of Nats to help us get to the bottom of what went wrong yesterday.
“Clearly, an incident happened two years ago, and measures were taken then.
“It looks like those measures weren’t enough, but we need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened, and conversations will take place today.”
A former industry chief has said that it is “unrealistic” to expect an air traffic management system where there is no technical failure.
Graham Lake, former director general of the air traffic management industry association Canso, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you look at the minutes of outage over a period of years, your availability – system availability – is, frankly, very, very good. So, I think it’s unrealistic to expect a system where you have no technical failure.”
He added: “The failure yesterday was short and sweet, if you like, the recovery was quick – aircraft were operating again very, very quickly.”
And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for an urgent investigation into Nats to ensure the system is fit for purpose.
