A NATS technical fault on Sept. 8 disrupted hundreds of flights at major UK airports. Wizz Air called for an overhaul and Ryanair for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe’s resignation; neither airline caused the failure, and no financial hit has been reported.
NATS said it implemented a fix, worked with airlines and airports to restore normal operations, and apologized. Wizz Air argued that critical national infrastructure should not repeatedly disrupt aviation; Ryanair COO Neal McMahon cited assurances after the 2023 outage that resilience would improve and systems would be fixed.
The incident follows a 2023 NATS malfunction in automatic flight-plan processing that caused widespread disruption across British airports. In 2024, the Civil Aviation Authority said NATS needed to review its contingency plans. After the September fault, the regulator said it had contacted NATS and expected a full report, then would consider whether further steps were needed.
