THE UK’s top air traffic control boss is facing pressure to quit after he presided over three catastrophic failures.
Martin Rolfe, 51, the senior executive of National Air Traffic Services was paid £1.5 million, including £871,000 in bonuses, last year but is now facing questions over his future.
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The executive has been accused of overseeing a “litany of failures” during his time as CEO of the UK’s air traffic control services.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander demanded Rolfe launch a rapid review into the chaos, telling MPs on Wednesday afternoon that she did not believe the most recent air traffic control issue was “unavoidable.”
Thousands of passengers currently face being stuck abroad until next week after more than 1,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday due to the latest ATC failure.
The issue emerged at around 1pm on Tuesday and, while now fixed, Nats has warned that delays are expected to continue as it tries to “clear a backlog of flights.”
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The Nats chief executive found himself overseeing the huge failure just three years after promising a major meltdown “won’t happen again.”
He previously faced turbulence in 2023 when he oversaw his first failure in air traffic control which affected more than 250,000 passengers.
Another incident under Rolfe’s leadership affected hundreds of flights in July 2025 and was blamed on a radar-related failure.
Travellers are now being told they will not receive compensation if their flights were cancelled during the latest blunder because the outage will likely be considered as “extraordinary circumstances.”
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Nats boasts air traffic control responsibilities at some 15 airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester, with Rolfe in charge of the company.
The National Air Traffic Services [Nats] boss has held his position since 2015.
A consortium of airlines part-own Nats, with around 42 per cent of the firm owned by various airlines including British Airways while 49 per cent is owned by the government.
On the day of the latest failure, Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon said Rolfe must resign.
In a statement issued online he said: “They have a crap system and they don’t invest in it.
“Instead of investing in the system, they pay big bonuses to management and they pay huge dividends to the shareholders.”
While the boss of Wizz Air UK Yvonne Moynihan told BBC Radio 4: “I think in any industry, when you’ve had three failures, you need to consider that three strikes and you’re out.”
Whitehall sources told The Times: “The government holds the golden share in Nats and Martin Rolfe has overseen repeated outages that seem to wash off him like water off a duck’s back.
“In no other role could you oversee such a litany of failure and survive.”
Rolfe has ruled out a cyberattack as the cause behind the most recent failure and has denied that it was the same issue that caused the 2023 meltdown.
He said: “I don’t believe we’ve ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we’ve never seen in 50 years of operation.”
Downing Street said Rolfe still has the confidence of the government despite the most recent disaster.
NATS employs more than 5,000 staff who are reportedly encouraged to work from home by their chief executive.
The firm issued a statement in the aftermath of the failure, apologising to passengers who had been stranded.
Nats said: “We would also like to reiterate our apology to all those affected — passengers, airlines and airports — by our system issue yesterday.
“While our immediate focus is on safely managing today’s flights, a full investigation will be conducted to establish what happened and identify any further action needed.”
Hundreds of travellers have since taken to social media to share how they are stuck abroad in destinations including Tenerife, Corfu and Paris – and some even as far as Seoul and the US.
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Others have been stranded in UK airports with some stuck on planes for hours before moving.
The Sun has contacted Nats for comment.