RYANAIR has sensationally accused National Air Traffic Services of lying about the latest air traffic control meltdown, which grounded more than 2,000 flights and sparked travel agony for up to 500,000 passengers.
The no-frills carrier’s boss Michael O’Leary said the crippling system failure was caused by the same issues that grounded planes in 2023 and 2025.
4
4
Knock-on effects from the latest carnage will hit passengers for weeks.
Nats had said the problem sparking Tuesday’s catastrophe occurred in its flight processing system – but insisted it was not the same fault as the issues that caused the two previous outages and mass disruption.
But Mr O’Leary yesterday rubbished that theory, furiously stating: “We’ve had the third collapse of the UK air traffic control. The first one was in 2023, we had another one in 2025, and the latest one this week.
“The UK air traffic control system collapsed. Nats’ air traffic controllers have already told our ops’ controllers it’s a re-run of something similar to what happened in 2023. It’s a bogus flight plan that has brought down the system.
Read More in UK news
ATTACK PROBE
Man sexually assaulted by another man on Tube in early hours as CCTV released
FUNERAL CHARGE
Dad of A66 crash victim charged with assaulting mourner at own son’s funeral
4
4
“And yet the overpaid failure Martin Rolfe, who runs Nats, is out there telling us ‘oh no it’s something completely different’.
“This is the same Martin Rolfe who told the Houses of Parliament Transport Committee in 2023, that the 2023 system collapse was a one-off event – a once-in-a-lifetime event that won’t happen again.
“He also assured Parliament that if it does happen again there’ll be an effective back up system.
“And yet the system failed again in 2025, and this week we’ve had another Nats’ air traffic control system collapse.”
Most read in The Sun
SMASH DRAG
Moment teen yells ‘help’ as he’s dragged along on roof of car
TODDLER TRAGEDY
Moment girl, 2, playing with sister is crushed to death by car
SCHOOL TRAGEDY
At least 24 children feared dead after huge fire sparked school stampede
GUTWRENCHING MEMORIES
Charlie Kirk’s haunting last words seconds before his assassination
In 2023 The Sun revealed that the tiny airline French Bee was at the centre of the UK’s £100m air traffic control meltdown. We told how flight data for the airline – which owns just six jets – was not sent to controllers in Brussels in the usual way.
Details were instead sent directly to the London Area Control Centre, which handles aircraft flying in and out of the UK, as well as overflying traffic.
The computer system in Swanwick rejected the French Bee flight data. But repeated attempts were made to input the low-cost carrier’s information – which led in turn to the system crashing.
Flight plan data is routinely fed automatically into the UK’s flight hub from the European air traffic control base in Brussels. When flight planning systems fail – showing controllers the flight number, destination, route and aircraft type – the safe operation of jets through UK airspace is compromised.
And when back-ups don’t kick in, the system “goes manual”, meaning humans have to process data individually. Jets are grounded and traffic massively reduced to maintain safety – as happened in the latest meltdown.
Another source told The Sun how Nats uses computer technology which originated in the 1960s. A working replacement has been in the pipeline for years. But the failure to install a reliable back-up system, and prevent flight data crashes, has incensed aviation bosses – and led to multiple calls for £1.5million-a-year Martin Rolfe to quit.
Following the latest system failure, the Civil Aviation Authority said the “disruption caused by the Nats outage is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules”.
This means passengers are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.”
The announcement sparked fury seeing as airlines such as British Airways, which part-own Nats, will save tens of millions of pounds by not having to compensate their own passengers. One pilot conceded to The Sun: “It’s a total industry stitch-up.”
Ryanair chief executive Mr O’Leary continued his onslaught yesterday, stating: “Why is it only the UK air traffic control system, collapses? The French, Germans, Italians, Irish – they may go on strike and we’ll be infuriated they don’t show up to work, but their system doesn’t collapse.
“In 2023 Mr Rolfe told the Houses of Parliament Transport Committee it was a one-off event, so why did it happen again in 2025, and again in 2026.
“He also said that we’d have an effective back-up system should it happen again. And we’ve learned this week that we don’t have one.”
He branded Mr Rolfe’s assurances “worthless”, adding it is “not acceptable” for Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to ask him to compile a report into the latest fiasco.
The Ryanair chief blasted: “That’s like asking a failed student to mark his own exam paper.
“Martin Rolfe has demonstrated again and again he is incompetent. He is not fit to run UK air traffic control and he’s certainly not the person to repair whatever is going wrong with this system.
“Heidi Alexander needs to dismiss Mr Rolfe and put someone competent in charge. We can’t keep having the same failures, the same collapse visited on UK airlines and passengers, year after year.”
The 65-year-old Irish billionaire businessman published a letter to the Labour politician, as well as an online rant on video, and told her: “Stop playing politics with this.”
Airlines including Wizz Air and EasyJet have also called for Mr Rolfe – who pocketed bonuses of up to £900,000 before the latest catastrophic system failure – to be sacked.
Separately, Michael O’Leary was accused of “trivialising” rape after comparing other airlines to rapists.
He claimed rising air travel prices at other carriers would see passengers switch to Ryanair, adding: “You might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair – but you know they’ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair’s low fares because they can’t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe.”
The comments were heavily criticised by victims’ campaigners and politicians.
A NATS spokesperson: “We have never seen the same incident twice. Following previous incidents’, we reviewed what happened, to identify lessons learned and make improvements where necessary.
“All recommendations on the previous events have been closed. A full investigation into Tuesday’s incident is already underway.
RECOMMENDED STORIES
“This was not a repeat of the 2023 incident. It involved different circumstances and systems.
“Our investigation is focused on establishing the root cause of this week’s incident and identifying any further action required. We will provide more information once that work is complete.”