Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander gave NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe a one-week deadline to explain the air traffic control failure disrupting Heathrow and other UK airports, after holding urgent talks with him on Wednesday morning, 9 September.
Downing Street said Alexander "met the chief of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) to raise significant concerns at the scale of disruption on behalf of both passengers and industry" and had "asked him to carry out a full investigation into what happened to make sure that lessons are learned, so that this doesn't happen again," setting a deadline for NATS to report back in a week, according to the Prime Minister's spokesman as reported by the Standard.
More than 2,000 flights have now been cancelled nationally since the fault in NATS's flight processing system at its Swanwick control centre struck on Tuesday afternoon, the Standard reported, citing FlightRadar data showing 246 cancellations at Heathrow alone by 6am Wednesday, with Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted also affected. The Guardian separately reported the summons as UK flight chaos entered its second day.
Asked whether Alexander and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham still had confidence in Rolfe, the Prime Minister's spokesman gave a carefully worded answer that stopped short of a full endorsement: "It's self-evident that she wants answers and the full investigation to be reported back in a week's time, and she's got confidence in him to deliver that." Pressed again on whether confidence was conditional on the investigation's outcome, the spokesman said: "We have confidence in him and he's been tasked with the investigation, which will report in a week's time."
Earlier on Wednesday, Rolfe apologised on BBC Radio 4's Today programme but dodged repeated questions about resigning, telling listeners: "Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems," while pointing to more than a billion pounds NATS has invested in technology since partial privatisation 25 years ago. He ruled out a cyber attack and said a "thorough" investigation would follow once the immediate backlog was cleared.
Ryanair and Wizz Air have called for Rolfe to resign. Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: "How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure Nats CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?" British Airways said it cancelled or diverted more than 100 flights on Tuesday alone, affecting tens of thousands of customers, and Ryanair said 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted.
What this means for your journey: if you're flying from Heathrow in the coming days, check your flight status directly with your airline before setting off, as knock-on delays are still working through the schedule following the NATS fault. If you're arranging a lift to or from the airport during this period of uncertainty, see our /taxis/ page for current options.