Air traffic control boss says he was ‘most disliked person in the UK’ after flight chaos
Summary
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe said he became highly unpopular after two air traffic control failures in September disrupted flights across the UK. He said the faults had been fixed but could not rule out future outages; a Civil Aviation Authority review is due to report to the transport secretary in early 2027.Key Facts
- Nats operates the two air traffic control centres involved in the September failures.
- The outage on 8 September disrupted flights and is the subject of a government-commissioned inquiry.
- Rolfe said Nats expected to handle about 8,000 flights on 8 September, and 6,000 flew that day.
- A second glitch at Nats’s Prestwick control centre on 21 September led to more than 200 flight cancellations.
- Airlines, including Ryanair, called for Rolfe to resign after the failures.
- Rolfe said he had not considered resigning and could not promise that the complex system would never fail again.
- The Civil Aviation Authority is reviewing the findings and plans to report to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander in early 2027.
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