Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has ordered the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) to deliver a report by Wednesday 16 September after a technical failure disrupted more than 2,000 flights and affected around 330,000 passengers.
Martin Rolfe was summoned to meet Ms Alexander within 24 hours of the breakdown, as pressure mounted on him to resign following the latest in a series of air traffic control failures.
The outage affected 2,145 flights across Tuesday and Wednesday, causing delays and cancellations at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. Operations have since returned to normal, although airlines have continued to deal with the knock-on effects of aircraft and crew being left out of position.
Ms Alexander said she wanted Mr Rolfe’s report to examine what caused the failure, how the backup systems responded and whether planned improvements to NATS’s IT infrastructure are sufficient.
“I’m particularly interested in the cause of this incident, the way in which backup systems operated,” she told Times Radio. “We need to interrogate what has gone wrong here. We need to be looking at the planned IT upgrades.”
She has also asked Civil Aviation Authority chief executive Rob Bishton to conduct an independent investigation, which is expected to take up to six months.
“It wouldn’t be right for NATS to be marking their own homework,” Ms Alexander said, adding that she would not make a judgment on Mr Rolfe’s position until both investigations had reported.
Downing Street said the Government retained confidence in the NATS chief executive, who has been asked to oversee the initial inquiry. Mr Rolfe has apologised for the disruption and said he took “full responsibility” for what happened.
NATS has ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of the failure, but the technical explanation remains under investigation. The company has said its engineers and software partners worked to resolve the problem and that a full report would be provided to ministers and the regulator.
Calls for the NATS chief to resign
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has called Mr Rolfe’s position “untenable” and accused the Government of protecting him. He also alleged that NATS had given the airline an account of the failure which differed from Mr Rolfe’s public explanation.
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair had been told the disruption was caused by a rogue flight plan, similar to the incident that caused widespread disruption in August 2023. Mr Rolfe has said he believes the latest failure had a different cause.
Ryanair is suing NATS in the High Court for more than £7 million over the 2023 outage. The airline has also urged the operator to reinvest profits in staffing and improvements to its systems.
Mr Rolfe has received £2.2 million in bonuses and incentive payments over the past three years, despite the major failures in 2023 and 2025. His pay and continued tenure have intensified criticism from airlines and industry figures.
Travel companies have stopped short of joining calls for his removal. EasyJet holidays chief executive Garry Wilson described the latest disruption as “an absolute pain”, but said the more fundamental issue was infrastructure investment.
Tui UK and Ireland managing director Neil Swanson said the focus should be on ensuring NATS took action rather than on individuals. He said the operator needed to provide a reliable service and invest properly in resilience.
The CAA said passengers were unlikely to qualify for compensation for delays or cancellations directly caused by the outage because it was likely to be classed as an extraordinary circumstance. Airlines, however, remain responsible for providing assistance and arranging refunds or alternative travel where required.
The regulator’s independent review of the August 2023 failure produced 34 recommendations, with the CAA saying in July 2025 that most were expected to have been validated and completed by the end of 2026.
