London, Sept 8. (PA Media/dpa/GNA) – The boss of an air traffic control provider said, he “always” accepts “full responsibility”, after a technical issue caused huge disruption to flights across the UK on Tuesday.
NATS, which provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports, said in a statement that recovery had “taken longer than we had hoped”, but that its “system issue” on Tuesday had been resolved by 7.30 pm (1830 GMT), as thousands of passengers continued to face cancellations and delays.
Asked on Sky News, whether he accepted responsibility for the incident, which caused chaos for many passengers, with flight monitoring website Flightradar24 saying more than 1,000 flights had been cancelled at UK airports by about 8pm, NATS’ chief executive officer Martin Rolfe said, “I always accept full responsibility”. He said: “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.”
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 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 on Tuesday, which had impacted “tens of thousands of customers”.
Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, called on Rolfe to resign, saying: “How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure NATS CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?
“Over three years after NATS’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable ATC (air traffic control) delays of up to eight hours today due a critical NATS ATC system failing.”
Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, is set to speak with Rolfe on Wednesday before she addresses lawmakers in the Commons for the second reading of the Civil Aviation Bill.
Rolfe said airlines would be able to provide the best information on how long the ongoing impact would take to resolve. “From a NATS perspective, our system is now back up and running, so we have resolved the issue and now controllers are there to help make sure that we can recover as fast as possible,” he said. “The challenge, of course, is this is a little bit like an accident on the M25 in rush hour. You clear the accident, but then you have a long tailback which needs to be resolved, aircraft in the wrong place, and so on. “The best information in terms of how long will take to resolve lies with the airlines.”
Travel journalist, Simon Calder, said the knock-on effects on Wednesday are “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.”
Heathrow suspended arrivals from 8 pm for the rest of the day on Tuesday “to ensure the safety of our passengers and colleagues”. “Departures have resumed, but disruption is expected to continue, so we advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest flight information before travelling to the airport,” the airport said in a statement on X.
“We apologise to those affected and are supporting our local NATS team and airline partners, as they work through the resulting disruption. “
More than 400 flights have been cancelled, with tens of thousands of passengers facing disruption, after an air traffic control issue in the UK on Tuesday.
NATS, which provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports, said in a statement that recovery had “taken longer than we had hoped” after a technical issue in its “flight processing system” which was causing the disruption on Tuesday.
Some 425 flights were cancelled to and from UK airports as of 5pm, following the problem, according to flight monitoring website Flightradar24, as airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh and Stansted confirmed they had been impacted.
NATS said the “system issue” had been resolved at about 7:30 pm (1830 GMT). “We are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” a statement on X said. Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted, and it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights.
Meanwhile, British Airways (BA) said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights on Tuesday, which had impacted “tens of thousands of customers”.
A spokesperson for company said, despite being informed by NATS that the issue had been resolved, the “severity” of the problem means there will be a “significant knock-on impact for customers and colleagues.”
The incident was “entirely out of our control and incredibly frustrating for our customers and colleagues” the spokesperson added.
Budget airline EasyJet said some of its flights were “unable to operate” following the issue which was causing delays to flights across Europe. NATS apologised for the disruption to people’s journeys and urged passengers to check with their airlines for updates. The company said it had “implemented a fix” and its flight system was “starting to recover.”
In a post on X, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job” following the disruption. She said she gave her “huge thanks” for those working to “get people moving.”
Passengers stranded at Heathrow and Gatwick told the Press Association of their “panic” upon hearing of the delays. Katherina Wilken and her partner were due to be flying back from Heathrow to Dusseldorf in Germany on Tuesday afternoon. The 26-year-old said she started to “panic” when at 3 pm she had no gate information for her flight, which was scheduled for 2:45 pm. The couple are now due to depart Heathrow at around 7 am on Wednesday.
She said: “It’s way too stressful to stay in a hotel miles away, we will probably stay here (at the airport) tonight.” Journalist Julia Pobegailova was due to fly from Gatwick to Tel Aviv at around 1:30 pm today, but sat on the runway for three hours before being informed it had been cancelled.
The 29-year-old told PA that Wizz Air’s next flight to Tel Aviv isn’t until Saturday. “I’m just trying not to panic,” she added. “I’m trying to figure out what to do and find a solution. There’s always a way, so it’s fine.”
Chi Chen travelled from Bristol to Heathrow airport, as he was meant to be flying to Naples to meet a friend and made it all the way through security before discovering his flight was cancelled. “I was due to be flying out at 6:15 pm (on Tuesday),” the 43-year-old told PA. “They only announced the cancellation at around 3:30 pm. “I was in panic and a lot of people were there.”
Chen and his friend were meant to be spending 10 days in Capri and Tuscany. He said British Airways emailed him offering an alternative flight at 6:05 am on Thursday, which involved flying to Brussels first, but he is unable to accept it.
The worst affected airports are Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham, according to Flightradar24, which said approximately 4% of UK flights have been cancelled or delayed as a result.
Jersey Airport in the Channel Islands, London City Airport, London Southend, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Southampton and Belfast airports are also among those who said they were impacted.
GNA