Air traffic control boss faces fresh calls to quit after second day of major flight disruption

The beleaguered boss of air traffic control in the UK is facing renewed calls to resign from airlines after a second day of major flight disruption in just one month.

Prime minister Andy Burnham refused to back the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) Martin Rolfe, on a day aviation analytics company Cirium reported at least 200 flights had been cancelled .

Unrelated to a software fault that caused the last meltdown on September 8, the “connectivity issue” at Nats’ Prestwick centre in Scotland grounded flights at airports in Edinburgh , Leeds Bradford , Belfast and Manchester on Monday.

It has impacted thousands of passengers , with many voicing frustration on social media over disruption.

After the incident earlier this month, which cost the aviation industry £70m, Mr Rolfe received the backing of government – but on Monday lunchtime, Mr Burnham’s spokesperson refused to answer a question on whether the PM retained confidence in the CEO.

It came amid heightened calls from airline leaders for his resignation.

Ryanair ’s chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: “Martin Rolfe has presided over repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system. Enough is enough.

Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy said: “There have been too many incidents, too many reports and too many promises of lessons being learned. What customers and airlines need now is action, accountability and proper resilience, and we need it urgently.”

He added: “Make no mistake, we are counting the cost of this disruption and will be sending another bill to Nats.”

Wizz Air UK’s managing director Yvonne Moynihan said: “Today, another failure has affected the north. Passengers and airlines are entitled to ask: which part of the country will be next?”

Just last Friday, Nats issued a preliminary report into the 8 September incident, saying it was caused by a software defect affecting a small part of the National Airspace System. The organisation said it was “unlikely” that the problem would happen again.

That came two years after an even bigger outage in August 2023, when more than 1,750 flights were cancelled, impacting 700,000 passengers. Last July, a “radar-related issue” also forced the cancellation of more than 160 flights.

Mr Rolfe said last week: “It’s our job to get people where they want to go, quickly and without delay and we are devastated when that goes wrong.”

Facing accusations of using “creaky” systems unable to keep up with flight demand, Nats previously told The Independent that it had invested more than £1bn in systems and technology over the past decade, with further investment planned.