Fresh disruption hit air travellers across the United Kingdom on Monday after a technical problem at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) control centre in Prestwick, Scotland, affected flights.
Independent reported that the latest incident came less than two weeks after a separate NATS system failure caused widespread disruption, affecting more than 2,000 flights. NATS said Monday’s problem was unrelated to the earlier software defect and that the latest fault had been resolved, although delays were expected to continue as airlines worked to restore normal schedules.
Ryanair subsequently stepped up its criticism of NATS, with the airline’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, calling for Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to resign. The airline said more than 140 of its flights had been delayed, affecting over 25,000 passengers.
McMahon said repeated technical failures had raised concerns about the resilience of the UK’s air traffic control system. Ryanair also urged Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to remove Rolfe if he refuses to step down.
The latest disruption follows a preliminary NATS report published on September 18, which identified a software defect in a section of its flight data system as the cause of the September 8 incident. Rolfe said a mitigation measure had been put in place while a permanent fix undergoes safety testing.
NATS has apologised to affected passengers and said it was working with airports and airlines to lift the temporary air traffic restrictions as quickly as possible and minimise further disruption.
