The impact of a major failure of Britain’s air traffic control system has rolled into its second day, with over 2,000 flights cancelled leaving crews and aircraft in the wrong place for flights departing globally, and potentially hundreds of thousands of passengers left stranded.
The British transport minister summoned the head of Britain’s air traffic control system, the National Air Traffic Services (‘NATS’) for an explanation after its computers ground to a halt for the third time in little over three years, throwing national and international aviation into disarray. Over 1,700 flights were cancelled on Tuesday and hundreds more have been cancelled today as stranded aircraft and crews weren’t in the right places at the right times to resume flying, with this long tail of disruption expected to last days more.
Europe’s largest airport, Heathrow, was particularly impacted, but a dozen other airports across the UK were hit on Tuesday.
Two European airlines have called on the chief of NATS, Martin Rolfe, to resign, with one of them in punchy language pointing out these problems keep happening and that Rolfe is an “overpaid failure”.
Airline Ryanair has claimed that its understanding is the cause of this week’s NATS computer crash is the same problem that caused a major transport failure back in 2023, and demanded to know why it hadn’t been rectified in the years since. NATS denied this claim.
NATS boss Rolfe defended his leadership and organisation, however, stating he runs the safest and most efficient air traffic control in Europe. The government has said they will be placing the investigation into what went wrong into Rolfe’s hands, and he said that while a “very, very thorough and full investigation” would follow, they had already determined the disruption was not caused by a “cyber attack”.
Such is the magnitude of would-be travellers stranded away from home, whole European cities have had every hotel room for miles around booked up. The Daily Telegraph reports there isn’t a single hotel room to be had within 25 miles of Rome, Italy, while British capital London is also totally sold out, but for a handful of price-gouging rooms pointed to by Anglo-Irish frequent-flyer journalist Pádraig Belton, who points to a handful budget rooms in remote places listed for up to £10,000 a night.