Nats Under Fire Again as Fresh UK Flight Disruption Renews Calls for CEO to Resign
Britain’s air traffic control system is facing renewed scrutiny after a second disruption in two weeks delayed and canceled flights across parts of the United Kingdom, with airlines accusing National Air Traffic Services (Nats) of failing to provide a reliable service and Ryanair once again demanding that its chief executive resign.
Nats said Monday’s problem affected flights in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. The company said the issue was not connected to a software fault on Sept. 8 that led to more than 2,000 cancellations and disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers.
By around 4:30 p.m., 117 flights scheduled to depart the UK had been canceled, along with 110 due to arrive, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Airports in Edinburgh, Belfast and Manchester reported delays, and Luton Airport said domestic flights had been disrupted.
The disruption drew swift criticism from carriers still dealing with the fallout from the earlier failure. Airlines UK chief executive Tim Alderslade said passengers and airlines “deserve better” and called air traffic control “critical national infrastructure” that “must be resilient enough to keep people moving.”
“Yet another Nats failure is causing delays and disruption for passengers and airlines alike, and comes just days after its report into the most recent major outage,” Alderslade said.
EasyJet said the latest incident “once again calls into question the resilience of Nats’ systems” and demonstrated the need for firm action to prevent repeated failures. Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy said customers and airlines need “action, accountability and proper resilience,” adding that it was “simply not good enough for this critical national infrastructure to keep letting customers down.”
“Customers work hard to look forward to their holidays and airlines work hard to deliver those holidays,” Heapy said.
British Airways said it was “disappointing” that some customers may experience disruption after “yet another technical fault with Nats.”
Ryanair was among the most vocal critics. The airline said more than 25,000 of its passengers were expected to be disrupted and more than 140 of its flights had been delayed Monday. Chief operations officer Neal McMahon said CEO Martin Rolfe had presided over repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective backup system.
“Enough is enough. Martin Rolfe should resign today,” McMahon said.
Nats said Monday’s incident was caused by a “connectivity issue” at its Prestwick center in Scotland, which has since been fixed. The provider said airports south of Manchester were “broadly unaffected,” but flights heading north and departing from Scottish airports experienced delays.
“Passengers should check with their airlines. This is unrelated to the issue two weeks ago. We apologize for the disruption,” Nats said.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said in a post on X that engineers had “fixed the problem and systems are resuming,” though she warned some delays could continue during the reset. “I know this will be deeply frustrating for passengers after the previous issue,” she said.
Scottish First Minister John Swinney, speaking during an unrelated visit to Edinburgh Airport, called the disruption “very regrettable.” He told the Press Association he was glad the issues were resolved and flights could take their normal course, but said the episode showed that all organizations—especially air traffic control—need resilience and the ability to withstand system problems so the public can rely on services.
A Nats spokesperson said the Prestwick issue was fixed and that the company was working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as possible to minimize further disruption. Passengers should still check their flight status with their airline, the spokesperson said, adding that Nats apologized for the disruption.
The latest disruption comes as Nats remains under pressure over the Sept. 8 outage. An initial report found that incident was caused by a software defect, not by “any incorrect actions,” and that the fault occurred in “the space of a millisecond.” Rolfe apologized for the incident earlier this month and said he took “full responsibility.”
Nats has faced other major failures in recent years. Last July, a “radar-related issue” caused an air traffic control failure that disrupted thousands of passengers and forced the cancellation of more than 160 flights. In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports after Nats experienced a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
The recurring problems raise questions about the resilience of a system that is vital to the UK economy and to millions of travelers each year. Nats is the country’s leading air traffic control provider and handles about 2.5 million flights annually. Any outage can quickly ripple through airlines, airports, supply chains and passenger plans, making reliability—and backup capacity—central to the debate over accountability.