Nats boss to meet UK transport secretary as second day of flight chaos takes cancellations past 1,300 – business live

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Air traffic chaos across the UK stretched into a second day on Wednesday after a technical fault at National Air Traffic Services (Nats) forced more than 1,300 flight cancellations, with tens of thousands of passengers affected. Nats, which provides air traffic control for 15 UK airports, reported a problem with its flight processing system that began at around 1pm on Tuesday. Although the company said the fault itself was resolved roughly four hours later, the knock-on disruption continued to ripple through the network into Wednesday morning, hitting departures and, later, arrivals across much of southern England. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted and Birmingham were among the airports worst affected, with tracking data cited by outlets suggesting 246 cancellations at Heathrow and 33 at Gatwick by 6am on Wednesday alone.

The fallout for passengers and airlines was severe. British Airways said it had cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights, affecting tens of thousands of customers, while Ryanair put the number of its own passengers hit by the disruption at over 65,000. Some travellers faced extraordinary delays: one flight from Heathrow to New York reportedly sat on the runway for as long as nine hours before its passengers could disembark. With crew and aircraft left out of position, airlines warned that the disruption—and the scramble to rebook stranded holidaymakers, pilots and cabin crew—could continue for several days.

The episode has intensified scrutiny of Nats and its chief executive, Martin Rolfe, who earns a reported £1.5m a year and was due to meet the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, on Wednesday morning, shortly before she opened the second reading of the Civil Aviation Bill in the Commons. Asked whether he was considering resigning, Rolfe said he accepted full responsibility as head of a piece of critical national infrastructure, but framed his priority as restoring normal operations and supporting airlines, airports and passengers rather than his own position. Nats itself described the recovery as complex and said it would take time for the wider aviation network to return to normal. The breakdown was described as the third major stoppage attributable to Nats in just over three years.

Reaction from airlines and politicians was considerably sharper than Nats' own statement. Ryanair's chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, publicly called for Rolfe to be replaced, branding him an “overpaid failure” and urging the government, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Nats board to appoint new leadership capable of preventing repeated failures. Wizz Air said it was “extremely disappointed” by yet another outage and argued Nats was “not fit for purpose” in its current form, while the Conservative shadow transport spokesman, Greg Smith, questioned why Britain kept struggling to keep its airspace running smoothly and demanded clarity on what had gone wrong and how resilience would be improved. Nats is 49% government-owned, a fact several critics highlighted in pressing ministers to act.

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