The beleaguered boss of air traffic control in the UK is facing renewed calls to resign from airlines after a second day of major flight disruption in just one month.
Prime minister Andy Burnham refused to back the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) Martin Rolfe, on a day aviation analytics company Cirium reported at least 200 flights had been cancelled.
Mr Rolfe is now facing increased scrutiny within the industry.
Unrelated to a software fault that caused the last meltdown on September 8, the “connectivity issue” at Nats’ Prestwick centre in Scotland grounded flights at airports in Edinburgh, Leeds Bradford, Belfast and Manchester on Monday.
It has impacted thousands of passengers, with many voicing frustration on social media over disruption.
After the incident earlier this month, which cost the aviation industry £70m, Mr Rolfe received the backing of government – but on Monday lunchtime, Mr Burnham’s spokesperson refused to answer a question on whether the PM retained confidence in the CEO.
It came amid heightened calls from airline leaders for his resignation.
Ryanair’s chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: “Martin Rolfe has presided over repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system. Enough is enough.
“Martin Rolfe should resign today.”
Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy said: “There have been too many incidents, too many reports and too many promises of lessons being learned. What customers and airlines need now is action, accountability and proper resilience, and we need it urgently.”
He added: “Make no mistake, we are counting the cost of this disruption and will be sending another bill to Nats.”
Wizz Air UK’s managing director Yvonne Moynihan said: “Today, another failure has affected the north. Passengers and airlines are entitled to ask: which part of the country will be next?”
Just last Friday, Nats issued a preliminary report into the 8 September incident, saying it was caused by a software defect affecting a small part of the National Airspace System. The organisation said it was “unlikely” that the problem would happen again.
That came two years after an even bigger outage in August 2023, when more than 1,750 flights were cancelled, impacting 700,000 passengers. Last July, a “radar-related issue” also forced the cancellation of more than 160 flights.
Mr Rolfe said last week: “It’s our job to get people where they want to go, quickly and without delay and we are devastated when that goes wrong.”
Facing accusations of using “creaky” systems unable to keep up with flight demand, Nats previously told The Independent that it had invested more than £1bn in systems and technology over the past decade, with further investment planned.
In a statement on Monday, Nats said: “The issue in our Prestwick centre is now fixed. We are working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption.
“Passengers should still check the status of their flight with their airline. We apologise for the disruption.”
Meanwhile, hectic scenes broke out at airports on Monday morning as passengers arrived to find flights delayed or cancelled. Some told The Independent they faced disruption to family plans and had been let down by communication.
Dan Halpenny and his family were booked to fly from Dublin Airport to Leeds Bradford Airport at 10.25am. However, when they arrived at the airport, following a weekend away for a birthday in Ireland, they discovered the flight had been delayed.
Their stress was compounded by a need to get to the UK for a flight from London Stansted to Bali on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Halpenny, a 29-year-old father-of-two, said: “We are supposed to feel relatively trustful over using air travel, but these recent incidents have hit that and might mean when booking flights we book a couple of days earlier or even look at different modes of transport.”
Nikki Ferguson and her family had their trip to Disneyland Paris disrupted by the air traffic control issues. They were meant to be flying from Glasgow to Paris Charles de Gaulle with easyJet on Monday morning, but their flight was cancelled, and they were moved onto a flight from Edinburgh to Paris on Monday evening.
Mrs Ferguson said: “My youngest daughter was crying, thinking we were not going to get to go. We’re still feeling stressed, not sure if we’re actually going to get there today or not.”
Some 117 flights scheduled to depart the UK were cancelled on Monday, as well as 110 that were due to arrive, aviation analytics company Cirium said at around 4.30pm.
In a post on X, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander acknowledged how “deeply frustrating” the latest disruption would be “after the previous issue.”
Passengers impacted by Monday’s fault are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation” as it was likely to be considered “the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules”, the Civil Aviation Authority said.
Nats is the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services and handles about 2.5 million flights per year.
