Ryanair has called for Nats’ chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign after the air traffic control fault on Wednesday.
The airline claimed “no lessons have been learnt” since the August 2020 system outage.
Ryanair’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of Nats.
“Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace meaning thousands of passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted.
“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the Aug 2023 Nats system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.
“If Nats CEO Martin Rolfe fails to resign on the back of this latest Nats system outage that has disrupted thousands of passengers yet again, then UK transport minister Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of Nats’ shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent Nats failures.”
In a statement, NATS said: “Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon.
“We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area.
“We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.”
A Heathrow spokesperson says: “Flights at Heathrow have resumed following a technical issue at the NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre.
“We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
EasyJet said: “An earlier technical issue at the NATS air traffic control centre today has been causing disruption to flights to and from the UK.
“We are advising customers travelling this evening to check our Flight Tracker for the most up to date information on their flight and are contacting all impacted customers directly.
“While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the ATC [air traffic control] failure.”
Gatwick Airport said:”A technical issue impacting NATS is affecting all outbound flights across the UK.
“There are currently no departures from London Gatwick while the situation is being resolved.
“We are working with NATS to resume flights as quickly as possible. Inbound flights are still landing at the airport.
“Passengers should check the status of their flights with their airline.”
