Digest · Local Post
The boss of the air traffic control provider Nats, Martin Rolfe, has been summoned to meet the UK transport secretary as flight cancellations hit 1,300 in a second day of disruption for hundreds of thousands of passengers. Rolfe is under increasing pressure to resign after a third major stoppage in flights over the past three years. He ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause of the current technical issue at Nats, which provides services to 15 UK airports.
"We will be doing a very thorough and full investigation," he said. "We have at this point ruled out a cyber-attack. This will be something we haven't seen in more than 50 years of operation." Nats stated the problem occurred in its flight processing system but was not the same fault as those causing outages in 2023 and 2025.
Yvonne Moynihan, managing director of Wizz Air UK, urged Rolfe to resign over repeated technical failures. "In any industry with three failures, you need to consider three strikes and you're out," she said. "A third time and a third excuse is not enough." On Tuesday, Nats admitted the fix was complex and caused further disruption.
By Wednesday morning, 246 flights were cancelled at Heathrow, and Gatwick had 33 cancellations. Heathrow and Gatwick airports issued statements advising passengers to check their flight status. Ryanair reported over 65,000 delayed passengers and 50 cancellations, affecting flights across Europe.
The airline demanded Rolfe’s resignation, stating that families and workers had suffered due to Nats' failures. The disruption began at 1pm on Tuesday, affecting Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, and other UK airports. Previous incidents included an isolated event a year ago and a full grounding in August 2023, prompting a parliamentary inquiry.
Source: The Guardian
