Ryanair chief calls for National Air Traffic Control head to quit after 'delivered a pattern of failure'
The disruption had left aircraft and crews in the wrong places across Ryanair’s network, with 20 planes unable to return to their scheduled positions overnight
Ryanair’s chief operations officer has called for the head of National Air Traffic Services to resign after an IT outage caused hundreds of flight cancellations and widespread delays.
Listen to this article
Neil McMahon told LBC that the CEO of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) Martin Rolfe had overseen “a pattern of failure” after more than 1,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday .
An estimated 300 further flights were cancelled on Wednesday morning, with footage emerging from airports across Europe overnight showing passengers sleeping on terminal floors.
Mr McMahon said the disruption had left aircraft and crews in the wrong places across Ryanair’s network, with 20 planes unable to return to their scheduled positions overnight.
"Yet again, another ATC failure in the UK," Mr McMahon said.
He told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast that Ryanair expected to operate a full schedule on Wednesday after investing heavily in its own resilience.
But he said Mr Rolfe should step down.
It comes as the glitch is thought to have cost the air travel industry around £100million, as the head of the Nats refused to step down over the glitch, despite admitting responsibility and adding he was "sorry" for the ongoing issues.
Read More: Some airlines will ‘struggle to survive’ if oil prices stay high, warns Ryanair
“Martin Rolfe should go, meet the Transport Secretary this afternoon and resign,” Mr McMahon said.
“It is clear he is hugely well-paid. He’s on about £1.5 million a year and he has presided over a pattern of failures.”
He said NATS had previously pledged to MPs that a similar event would not happen again following disruption in August 2023.
“Less than three years later, here we are with more passengers disrupted, millions upon millions of pounds’ worth of damage to airlines and passengers missing vital family events - all because NATS don’t invest in resilience,” he said.
Mr McMahon said the latest disruption was likely to cost airlines millions, with Ryanair paying for hotel stays and handling passenger expense claims.
“It’s just a complete mess and it’s utterly avoidable,” he said.
He claimed the scale of the failures was unique to the UK, adding: “We haven’t seen this in Italy. We haven’t seen it in France. We haven’t seen it in Spain. We haven’t seen it in Ireland. We haven’t seen it in Germany.
“This is a UK problem.”
Mr McMahon also called for NATS to reimburse airlines, arguing that the current regulatory system left carriers to absorb the financial impact of outages.
“It’s only right that NATS do the honourable thing and pay for the damage they caused,” he said.
Mr Rolfe will speak to the Transport Secretary later today to discuss the disruption, with the knock-on effects set to rumble on into Thursday.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told LBC that the Transport Secretary would today "demand an explanation" of Mr Rolfe, insisting: "We need our airports running normally."
Mr Rolfe said he “always accept(s) full responsibility” when asked if he was considering his position after the incident.
Footage emerging from airports across the UK and wider European destinations show passengers sleeping on floors and camp beds in terminals, as well as being provided with towels, chocolate bars and fizzy pop by airport staff.
A stranded passenger attempting to fly home from Ibiza told LBC that her Tuesday flight was cancelled, with British Airways offering her the next available flight - that wasn't until Friday.
She was eventually forced to change airlines in order to board an alternate flight to Bournemouth Airport, which is set to take off later today.
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 7.30pm as thousands of passengers continued to face cancellations and delays.
Mr Rolfe said amid the fiasco that he “always” accepts “full responsibility” after a technical issue caused huge disruption to flights.
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.”