Michael O’Leary calls for air traffic control chief to resign

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has issued fresh calls for the resignation of the chief executive of air traffic control (ATC) provider Nats.

Mr O’Leary urged Martin Rolfe to step down and “allow someone competent” to take over after flights were disrupted at Gatwick Airport on Sunday due to “Nats staff shortages”.

The airline’s chief executive has repeatedly criticised Mr Rolfe, particularly over the widespread disruption at UK airports during last year’s August Bank Holiday Monday, which was caused by a Nats technical failure.

Gatwick flights have frequently been disrupted due to ATC staffing issues.

Analysis of data from flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows 49 departures and 51 arrivals were cancelled on Sunday between 3pm and midnight, affecting more than 16,000 passengers.

Many other flights were delayed.

Disruption continued on Monday morning due to planes being out of position.

Ten flights were cancelled and others were delayed.

Mr O’Leary said: “UK Nats staff shortages caused multiple flight delays and cancellations at Gatwick Airport yesterday, Sunday September 8.

“This is the latest in a long line of cock-ups by UK Nats, which has yet again disrupted multiple flights and thousands of passengers at Gatwick. Airlines and passengers deserve better.

“Ryanair again calls on UK Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe to step down and allow someone competent to run an efficient UK ATC service, which airlines and passengers are entitled to expect.

“If he won’t go, then (new Transport Secretary) Louise Haigh should sack him.”

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “The knock-on impact of Nats air traffic control staffing shortages at Gatwick yesterday has resulted in some flights to and from Gatwick Airport this morning being unable to operate.

“We are extremely disappointed that customers are once again being impacted by this and while this is outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused.

“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the disruption and have notified those on cancelled flights of their options to rebook or receive a refund and are providing hotel accommodation and meals where required.”

A spokesperson for Nats, which took over the provision of ATC services at Gatwick in October 2022, said: “We are very sorry for yesterday’s disruption which was also disappointing for our highly professional Gatwick team, who are doing all they can to provide a seamless 24/7 service.

“When Gatwick appointed us to improve their ATC performance and resilience, everyone knew we had inherited a staff shortage that would take time to fix.

“Controllers must be trained specifically for the Gatwick airport operation and it takes up to two years to be certified to safely control aircraft at the world’s busiest single runway airport.

“We have a full training pipeline in place and this year we have more controllers than last year.

“We are still not as resilient as we need to be, though, which means that short notice absence has an immediate impact on the operation.”

A Gatwick spokeswoman said Nats has “successfully increased the number of air traffic controllers over recent months”.

She went on: “So far this year, London Gatwick has safely handled more than 170,000 flights through Nats, a 4% increase on last year.

“The Nats service has been fully available more than 99.6% of the time, operating 24 hours a day.

“London Gatwick typically has 800 or more flight movements a day from a single runway.

“We will continue to work closely with the Nats leadership team to provide passengers and airlines with a good service.

“London Gatwick would like to apologise to any passengers who experienced disruption yesterday.”

Nats was approached for a comment.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said a combination of poor weather and ATC restrictions led to a surge in cancellations last week.

A total of 427 departures from UK airports were cancelled.

That represented 2% of all scheduled departures, and was a three-fold increase from the previous week.

Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, saw the most cancellations with 165, followed by Gatwick (87) and London City (36).