Ryanair CEO Demands NATS Chief Be Sacked After UK Flight Chaos

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has demanded the dismissal of National Air Traffic Services chief Martin Rolfe following a technical failure on September 8 that canceled hundreds of flights and disrupted over 65,000 passengers across major UK airports, triggering government scrutiny and an independent aviation review.

Air Traffic Outage Disrupts UK Airports and Ground Thousands

A technical fault within the UK flight data system struck on September 8, sending shockwaves through British airspace and affecting travel operations at major hubs including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Manchester. Around 2,163 flights felt the impact of the disruption, with delays and cancellations continuing into Wednesday, 9 September. While National Air Traffic Services reported that network recovery proceeded well thanks to the continued efforts of airlines, airports and others across the industry, the fallout has reignited intense friction between carriers and aviation leadership.

Ryanair absorbed a severe blow from the glitch, confirming that more than 65,000 of its passengers experienced disruptions and more than 250 flights were cancelled. The airlines are facing hundreds of thousands of discommoded passengers, cancelled flights, claims for compensation and right-to-care expenses.

Michael O’Leary Targets Martin Rolfe in Sacking Demand

In a new video posted to YouTube, Ryanair’s CEO called upon transport secretary Heidi Alexander to dismiss Martin Rolfe and put someone competent to run National Air Traffic Services (Nats) air traffic control services.

Stranded passengers gather after some departing flights were cancelled, at Heathrow Airport — Photo: Reuters

NATS have told us it was another rogue flight plan. Now Martin Rolfe is out denying it yesterday, O’Leary said. I believe he's telling lies to save his own skin.

O’Leary argued that Nats’ air traffic controllers have already told our ops’ controllers it’s a re-run of something similar to what happened in 2023, caused by a bogus flight plan that has brought down the system. Rolfe publicly maintained on BBC Radio on Wednesday that he believed the latest outage had been caused by something different from previous incidents, drawing flat rejection from the budget airline chief.

Contrasting Explanations Over the 2023 Parallels

The debate centers on whether the September 8 failure shares DNA with the massive 2023 shutdown. During the 2023 event, more than 700,000 passengers saw their flight plans disrupted after Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan containing a one in 15 million event in which a flight plan contained two identically named but separate waypoints, forcing both the system and its back-up into a “fail-safe” mode.

Ryanair CEO Demands NATS Chief Be Sacked After UK Flight Chaos — Photo: Independent

A Nats spokesperson confirmed to The Independent it was not the same issue as 2023, stating that the issue this week had affected the flight data system and represented a separate operational issue. Despite that clarification, O’Leary pressed past assertions made by Rolfe, noting that this is the same Martin Rolfe who told the Houses of Parliament Transport Committee in 2023 that the 2023 system collapse was a one-off event, and had assured parliament that if it does happen again, there’ll be an effective backup system. O’Leary claimed that we’ve learned this week that there was no backup system, and that your assurances are worthless, though the claim that Nats does not have a backup system could not be independently verified.

Government Intervention and High Court Legal Action

Political pressure on air traffic leadership intensified as transport minister Heidi Alexander summoned Rolfe for a meeting over the incident. Alexander said on Wednesday she believed the outage was avoidable and asked the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an independent review, while giving Rolfe a week to investigate the cause of the latest systems failure.

Ryanair: Air Traffic Boss Must Resign Over 'Crap' Nats System After Second Failure

O’Leary dismissed the one-week reporting window in his video address, stating that asking Mr Rolfe to come up with a report in one week on what caused the aviation issues is like asking a failed student to mark his own exam paper. O’Leary added that Martin Rolfe has demonstrated again and again and again over the last three years that he is incompetent and is not fit to run UK air traffic control. Beyond public sparring, financial disputes between carriers and the air traffic operator continue to mount. Ryanair is suing NATS in London’s High Court for more than £7 million ($9.5 million) over the 2023 outage and has called on the operator to reinvest profits in performance improvements and staffing.

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