Ryanair and Wizz Air bosses have called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign after it emerged the latest air traffic control meltdown was a repeat of an issue that caused a similar outage in 2023.
Passengers were today facing another day of travel chaos after nearly 300 flights in and out of Britain were axed – with warnings the disruption could continue for three weeks.
Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, revealed this morning that yesterday’s NATS failure was caused by the that brought the system to a standstill two years ago.
In 2023, more than 700,000 passengers experienced disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports when NATS suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary added Mr Rolfe’s position had become ‘untenable’, adding that the service ‘keeps repeatedly failing’ under his leadership.
Meanwhile, the managing director of Wizz Air UK, Yvonne Moynihan, said there are ‘serious questions about the resilience’ of the UK’s air traffic control service.
Up to 250,000 travellers were impacted across airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted as airlines dealt with an air traffic control system failure.
Some 1,750 flights to and from UK hubs were axed yesterday after a major issue at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides control to 15 British airports.
After some passengers slept on floors overnight, Heathrow had 246 cancellations by 6am today while 33 services were axed at Gatwick, according to FlightRadar24.
Passengers travelling through all UK airports were told to check their flights before setting off, with experts warning the disruption could last until the end of the month.
Australian actress Rebel Wilson was among the passengers stranded at Heathrow last night and shared videos of herself walking through the terminal looking exhausted.
Sky Sports Formula 1 broadcaster Martin Brundle said last night he had been stuck on a plane at Heathrow for ‘nine hours’ and had travelled nowhere – with the toilets on the aircraft having become blocked and no food being offered to passengers.
He tweeted: ‘Great work BA and Heathrow. Nine hours and counting sitting on a plane which has travelled nowhere. At a remote parking bay, no food throughout.
‘Mother and baby and a person with a medical condition desperate to get off. As is everyone else. Toilets no longer available as blocked.’
Passengers ask for information as London Heathrow Airport today as disruption continues
Travellers sleep on the floor at London Gatwick Airport in the early hours of this morning
Australian actress Rebel Wilson was among the passengers stranded at Heathrow last night
Passengers at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal Four slept on yoga mats on the floor overnight
Passengers wait for flights at London Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal this morning
Passengers queue up at London Heathrow today during disruption after a NATS system issue
People arrive with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport this morning
At Heathrow’s Terminal 4, passengers slept on yoga mats on the floor overnight as they awaited updates on their flight.
Patrick Weston, 45, of Enfield, north London, was planning to fly out to Gothenburg in Sweden today but his service was cancelled.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s absolute chaos here. You cannot believe this can keep happening in Britain in 2026 with all the technology we have. It was a mini break for me. I have no idea what is happening. There’s just a feeling of helplessness.
‘It shouldn’t be like this in this day and age. That’s the frustrating part. Of course, things go wrong. But this is just a regular occurrence now. I am stranded now.’
Clara Nguyen, 28, and her boyfriend, Lihan Chen, 25, both students in Leeds, were booked on a flight from Heathrow to Ho Chi Minh City yesterday evening which is now expected to depart this afternoon.
They spent the night in an Airbnb which they paid for themselves. Ms Nguyen said: ‘The airport tried to help but the service and information from Air Vietnam were poor.’
Engineer Felix Abrams, 29, was on his way to Beijing to visit his girlfriend’s family. He said the way he had been treated was ‘demeaning’ and that there had been ‘a complete shirking of responsibility’.
He added: ‘How was the airport not prepared for this? This failure has happened before. It’s not our fault. We’re not being told anything.’
Another passenger, who did not wish to be identified, told the Daily Mail that she arrived at Malaga Airport yesterday for a flight home to Manchester and boarded on time.
But she continued: ‘As soon as the doors were closed we were told there was an issue with air traffic control in London and we would be delayed for about one hour and 20 minutes.
‘After about half an hour the pilot apologised and said he had an update that wasn’t good news – we would be delayed another five hours minimum, so we had to return to the terminal.
‘After waiting for steps and buses, we got off and were taken back inside the terminal, then told nothing and left to our own devices. Those with checked baggage had to retrieve that too. No easyJet staff to direct or assist, no information, desks closed – some people without phones were totally lost.’
She added that trying to rebook flights on the app was ‘impossible’ because it was not working, with other airlines showing no flights until at least Monday.
The woman also said: ‘My husband has a hospital procedure on Saturday, we don’t have enough medications with us to last beyond Thursday and I’m supposed to be back in work tomorrow. Nightmare.’
It comes as Mr Rolfe was clinging to his job today ahead of a showdown with Ms Alexander amid calls for his resignation.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Rolfe apologised for the issue but dodged questions over whether he would quit.
He said: ‘Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems. We never want them to. We always hope they won’t, but we absolutely plan for them to and make sure we handle them properly.’
Mr Rolfe added: ‘I would say the UK has one of the best reputations in the world for its air traffic control service, both from a safety perspective and from a resilience perspective.
‘NATS was actually a partial privatisation 25 years ago, and since that point, it’s had access to funding.
‘We’ve invested way more than a billion in technology over that time, our service has consistently improved. Our safety is consistently improved from a very good base.
‘But all of those things don’t detract from the fact that when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologise.’
On the cause of the problem, Mr Rolfe said a ‘thorough’ investigation would take place, but ruled out a cyber attack.
He added: ‘My focus and that of the team has been on both getting our system operating back up normally, which it is now, but there’s obviously a huge tail to the disruption and we’ll be working on that through the course of today.
‘And then our attention will turn to exactly what’s happened in this particular incident.
‘What I will say is, I don’t believe we’ve ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we’ve never seen in 50 years of operation.’
Discussing the response to yesterday’s incident, Mr Rolfe said: ‘We had everybody on site, everybody was in the right place. We had all the engineers in place. We had our various partners from software industries and so on all on hand.
‘So this was resolved as quickly as it could be, but within the limits of making sure that it all stayed safe.’
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights.
British Airways said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights yesterday which had affected ‘tens of thousands of customers’.
Mr Rolfe has been under fire from Wizz Air and Ryanair after the latest issue which saw some passengers trapped on planes on runways for hours.
Ryanair called on the Government to ask Mr Rolfe to resign.
Asked in an interview with Times Radio Breakfast whether it was time for the Government to ‘step in’, the airline’s chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: ‘Absolutely.
‘We think (Ms Alexander) should ask him to resign.
‘We think it’s critical that we put in somebody in NATS at the top who can deliver resilience, who can deliver the extra staffing that’s needed so that NATS can perform as well as other ATC (air traffic control) providers across Europe.
‘Like, we don’t see this in France, we don’t see this in Italy, we don’t see this in Spain, we don’t see this in Ireland, we don’t see this in Germany.
‘This is a UK problem where the backup systems don’t kick in when the primary systems have a fault.’
He added that Ryanair has been forced to cancel 250 flights with costs to the company expected to ‘run into the millions’.
Mr McMahon said: ‘Airlines across the UK cancelled over a thousand flights, and hundreds of thousands of people were disrupted because the lessons learned for the previous failures have not been delivered by Martin Rolfe.’
People sleep on the floor at London Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal this morning
Passengers wait at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption after a system issue hit NATS
Empty check-in queues in part of London Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal this morning
Passengers rest with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport today
Travellers wait at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption after a system issue hit NATS
People sleep as they wait for flights at London Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal this morning
Passengers rest with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport today
Passengers look at information boards at Heathrow Airport today during ongoing disruption
Asked what he thought the cost to Ryanair would be following the incident, Mr McMahon said: ‘It’ll run into the millions.’
He added: ‘We have crews everywhere and it’s a real shambles because we couldn’t get our aircraft where they were meant to be yesterday.
‘We had 250 flights cancelled, so really, really disruptive for us.’
Mr McMahon also said yesterday’s NATS incident was caused by the ‘exactly the same issue’ as a problem in 2023.
In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers experienced disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports when NATS suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
Mr McMahon said of yesterday’s problem: ‘NATS told us it was a flight planning processing failure, which is exactly the same issue that happened in 2023.
‘If you remember in 2023 there was an issue with a flight plan, and it sent the system in a in a loop that eventually caused it to shut down.
‘We’re told that that was a rogue flight plan and we’re told yesterday this was a spurious flight plan which caused the same outage and our question is like: these things can happen, but where’s the backup systems?’
He added: ‘The failing is that the backup system was unable to kick in and work, like it’s not a backup system if it shuts down.
‘That’s the definition of a backup is that when the primary system goes down, that you can revert and keep going.’
Last July, a ‘radar-related issue’ caused an air traffic control failure that grounded flights across the UK, disrupting thousands of passengers and forcing the cancellation of more than 160 flights.
The problem happened at the NATS control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and affected the vast majority of England and Wales.
The managing director of Wizz Air UK said there are ‘serious questions about the resilience’ of the UK’s air traffic control service.
Yvonne Moynihan told the BBC: ‘We had 24 cancellations yesterday and over 21 other flights that were disrupted with long-term delays.
‘So that’s over 10,000 passengers coming in and out of London have had major disruption.’
People sleep on the floor at London Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal this morning
Passengers ask for information as London Heathrow Airport today as disruption continues
An easyJet plane takes off from London Gatwick Airport this morning as some flights resume
Passengers rest with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport today
Travellers wait at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption after a system issue hit NATS
Passengers stand next to information boards at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption
Passengers rest with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport today
Passengers ask for information as London Heathrow Airport today as disruption continues
Ms Moynihan added: ‘This is now the third time that we have had an air traffic control failure, and during the peak period as well. So major questions need to be asked There are serious questions about the resilience of this system.’
Asked whether Mr Rolfe should consider resigning, Ms Moynihan said: ‘I think in any industry, when you’ve had three failures, you need to consider that three strikes and you’re out. So I think it’s certainly something that he needs to look at.’
She added: ‘A third time and a third excuse is not enough anymore.’
Earlier, Mr Rolfe said that he ‘always accept(s) full responsibility’ when asked if he was considering his position after the incident.
He told Sky News: ‘I am the CEO of a piece of critical infrastructure, so it is my job to take responsibility for that.
‘What I absolutely take responsibility for is keeping people safe and delivering the best service we possibly can on a day like today.
‘You will understand my focus is entirely about how we actually resolve this issue, get things back to normal, help our airlines, our airport customers and the travelling public.’
This morning, Heathrow advised travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
‘Following yesterday’s NATS technical issue, flights are operating today, but some disruption may continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crew,’ it said in a statement on social media.
‘Please check your flight status with your airline before travelling to the airport and only travel if your flight is confirmed to be operating.
‘We apologise to those affected and have extra colleagues across our terminals to support passengers while we work with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations as quickly as possible.’
Gatwick also said flights had resumed but disruption was likely to continue.
Its statement said: ‘We still anticipate that it will take time for our operations to fully return to normal. Passengers should continue to check with their airlines for more information regarding their flights.’
Luton Airport confirmed early this morning that the airport was ‘open and operational’, but said: ‘Some flights may still be subject to disruption and passengers are advised to check their flight status directly before travelling to the airport.’
Travel journalist Simon Calder said the knock-on effects today were ‘going to be horrible’.
He told Sky News: ‘There are going to be dozens of cancellations in the morning of flights coming into Heathrow because, basically, the flights didn’t go out tonight.’
Air travel expert Julian Bray also said: ‘The disruption to air traffic is likely to go on for a good three weeks.
‘It was not just passenger services hit by the NATS Air Traffic computer meltdown but also crews and aircraft rendered inoperative as planes out of position, pilots out of hours as are cabin crew.
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Have you been caught up in the latest flight chaos?
Passengers wait at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption after a system issue hit NATS
People arrive with their luggage at the North Terminal of London Gatwick Airport this morning
Travellers wait at Heathrow today during ongoing disruption after a system issue hit NATS
Passengers at Heathrow Airport today during disruption after the air traffic control problem
‘Air cargo services also hit and many time critical shipments either ruined destroyed or delayed. Sadly all this could happen again with the current legacy computer set up it’s insufficient to simply bolt on new front end parts onto an ancient legacy system.’
Among the thousands facing disruption yesterday was Josie Donoghue, who had to get off her flight to Ireland after spending three hours on the runway at Gatwick.
Ms Donoghue said: ‘Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz. We were trapped in there. We were told we couldn’t get out until the flights were cancelled, and then eventually they allowed us to get out.
‘It’s just an absolute nightmare down there, it’s the only word I can use to describe it.’
Tory transport spokesman Greg Smith also criticised NATS, which is 49 per cent Government-owned.
He said: ‘Yet again passengers are stuck on the tarmac wondering why Britain cannot keep its own skies open. The Government and NATS must explain what has happened and how they will make sure resilience is improved.’
Luton Airport confirmed early today that it was ‘open and operational’, but warned that some flights could still be affected.
The airport said: ‘Some flights may still be subject to disruption and passengers are advised to check their flight status directly before travelling to the airport.’
Passengers have been urged to check directly with their airline before travelling to the airport and only set off if their flight is confirmed to be operating.
Beverley Griffiths, a senior lecturer in security and resilience at Buckinghamshire New University, called on lessons to be learned from the incident.
She said: ‘The confirmation that a cyber attack has been ruled out is an important development, but the incident still highlights the vulnerability of highly complex and interconnected systems.
‘The focus now should be on understanding not only what technical problem occurred, but why it was able to cause such widespread disruption, and whether there are lessons around system resilience, redundancy, maintenance and contingency planning.
‘Air traffic management is a hugely complex system involving multiple technologies, organisations and suppliers, so failures can have consequences far beyond the original problem. From a resilience perspective, the key issue is not whether systems ever fail, but how effectively they respond and recover when they do.
‘For passengers, the disruption is understandably incredibly frustrating, particularly when journeys involve family commitments, business travel or international connections.
‘The real test of resilience will be how quickly services can be safely restored, how effectively those affected are supported, and what can be learned to reduce the impact of future incidents.’
Have you been affected? Please email: lettice.bromovsky@dailymail.co.uk
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