Air traffic control boss on £1.5m a year faces intense pressure to resign after latest flights chaos
More than 2,000 flights were cancelled and 330,000 passengers affected because of the four-hour failure of a flight data system
The boss of the UK's air traffic control service is facing major pressure to resign after the latest systems failure that grounded thousands of flights and caused misery for hundreds of thousands of people.
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Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (Nats), who earned £1.5m last year, has overseen another major failure less than three years after promising a major flight meltdown "won't happen again."
In a further blow, it has emerged that passengers affected by the outage will probably not get any compensation because yesterday's chaos will be considered "extraordinary circumstances" according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
More than 2,000 flights were cancelled and 330,000 passengers affected because of the four-hour failure of Nats’ flight data system at its headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire.
Among those calling for Mr Rolfe to step down has been Michael O’Leary, the outspoken boss of budget airline Ryanair.
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On Wednesday, Mr O’Leary called Mr Rolfe’s position “untenable” and he is likely to issue further criticism when he hosts Ryanair’s annual general meeting at its headquarters close to Dublin airport later on Thursday.
Cancellations and delays continued on Wednesday as airlines dealt with knock-on impacts at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.
Rolfe has presided over three meltdowns of the UK's air traffic control systems. Last year he was paid £1.418m in salary and bonuses. In the first half of last year UK air traffic control was responsible for 2,770 flight delays.
Mr Rolfe's Dutch counterpart Joost Meijs is paid e262,000 per year and in the Netherlands there were just 284 flight delays in the same period.
These figures were compiled by Ryanair who said Mr Rolfe's pay was "a vastly excessive package for a glorified bureaucrat who doesn't do a particularly good job".
Last July, 150 flights were cancelled because of a computer crash, and over the August Bank Holiday of 2023 Britain's entire airspace was closed, affecting 700,000 passengers.
Nate has been accused of failing to invest in updating its systems.
Ryanair's chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: "They have a crap system and they don't invest in it. Instead they pay big bonuses to management and they pay huge dividends to the shareholders."
Airlines UK, which represents carriers, has written to the transport secretary demanding that Nats publish a “clear resilience and contingency improvement plan” and a review into liability for air traffic disruption so “airlines are not left to absorb millions of pounds of costs for failures outside their control”.
Airlines UK said it is concerned about a "recurring pattern of system failure."
A total of 399 flights were cancelled or did not fly on Wednesday.
The worst affected airport was London Heathrow, which saw 79 out of a total of 666 departure flights affected.
Meanwhile, British Airways was the worst affected airline, as it saw 88 of its 507 flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday affected.
The airline said it was “incredibly sorry” to its customers and that the issue had been “entirely out of our control”.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Wednesday said passengers are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident”.
A CAA spokesperson said: “We know many passengers have faced significant disruption and frustration following the Nats system issue on Tuesday September 8 and we understand the impact this has had on their travel plans.”
They added: “We consider that disruption caused by the Nats outage is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.
“This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday afternoon that she did not believe the air traffic control issue was “unavoidable”.
Addressing the Commons, she said: “A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions and delays.
“I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption.
“We often take for granted the way in which our aviation system just works, but yesterday that was not the case.
“Safety must remain air traffic controllers’ overriding priority, and this morning I have spoken to Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe, who informed me this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site.
“So, while my understanding from Nats is that we can rule out a cyber attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable.
“We also spoke this morning about how Nats responded to resolve and minimise the disruption as quickly as possible, and I am grateful to the airports and airlines who responded straight away.”
Ms Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.
Nats also said a full investigation will be conducted into the issue.
The air traffic services provider has apologised for disruption to passengers and airlines, for which Mr Rolfe said he took “full responsibility”.
BA said it has “long made the case for improved resilience in aviation” and issues raised by the system failure need “to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
A BA spokesperson said: “We’ve heard reassurances before, but then we’re faced with issues like this yet again.
“Our customers and colleagues are tired of dealing with these issues, time after time. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
On Wednesday, Downing Street said the Government still had confidence in Mr Rolfe.