Ryanair chief calls for UK air traffic control boss to go after Gatwick outage
The boss of Ryanair has called for NAT’s chief executive to step down from his £1.5m per year role.
The boss of Ryanair has called for head of the UK’s air traffic control body to step down after an outage at Gatwick yesterday caused significant disruption.
Flights were grounded and passengers faced hours of delays on Saturday after a system failure at the east-Sussex hub’s air traffic control tower.
In a statement, Ryanair’s combative chief Michael O’Leary said: “It’s time for Martin Rolfe to go. At an annual package of over £1.5m this clown has repeatedly shown he is incompetent.”
The outage at Gatwick is the latest in a string of incidents at the UK’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS). In August, a “one in 15 million” system-wide meltdown caused thousands of cancellations across the country’s airspace.
“If he won’t quit, then transport minister Mark Harper should fire him. These repeated UK NATS system failures are unique to the UK and are not repeated in any other European ATC service,” O’Leary said.
August’s failure drew widespread criticism from a slew of airline bosses, including Easyjet’s Johann Lundgren and O’Leary, who have questioned whether the organisation is fit for purpose.
A review into the incident is ongoing.
Gatwick’s NATs-operated tower has faced particular scrutiny since it was forced to cap flights in late September for weeks, after nearly a third of staff in its air traffic tower were unavailable due to sickness.
Former British Airways’ boss Willie Walsh, who also heads up the trade body IATA, named Gatwick in October as one of the worst offenders in Europe for air traffic control incidents.
Flight disruption caused by airspace issues remains a feature of European travel more broadly, with French Air Traffic Control strikes and the war in Ukraine affecting multiple flight routes.
A spokesperson for NATs said: “For a short period yesterday morning we had a technical issue that was quickly fixed. To make sure safety was maintained departures were paused temporarily but were resumed around 8am. We worked with airlines to minimise delays and would like to apologise for anyone whose journey was affected.”
Gatwick Airport was approached for comment.
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Ryanair’s O’Leary launches tirade against NATS after ’tissue of lies’ on air traffic failure
