Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary accused National Air Traffic Services (NATS) boss Martin Rolfe of lying about the cause of this week's air traffic control failure, Reuters reported on Thursday 10 September, as Heathrow recorded a further 28 cancelled flights (21 arrivals and seven departures) on the third day of disruption.
O'Leary said Ryanair had been told by NATS that the outage was caused by a "rogue flight plan", the same type of fault blamed for the August 2023 meltdown. Rolfe, speaking on BBC Radio on Wednesday, said he believed this week's outage had a different cause. "NATS have told us it was another rogue flight plan. Now Martin Rolfe is out denying it yesterday," O'Leary said, according to Reuters. "I believe he's telling lies to save his own skin."
Speaking to reporters in Dublin, O'Leary went further, saying Rolfe "keeps hiding behind safety" and "should be sacked", and accused the government, which owns 49% of NATS, of "trying to protect" him, the Daily Mail reported. Ryanair is separately suing NATS in London over the disruption, seeking more than 7 million pounds in damages.
NATS has said the latest outage was caused by a different issue to 2023 and had not responded to O'Leary's latest remarks at the time of reporting, according to Reuters.
Thursday's cancellations are well down on the hundreds seen earlier in the week. The Daily Mail put Thursday's UK-wide total at 51 flights cancelled across Heathrow, Gatwick, Glasgow and other airports, against a two-day total since Tuesday's four-hour outage of more than 2,000 flights delayed, diverted or cancelled nationally. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has given NATS a week to report internally, and asked the Civil Aviation Authority to run a separate six-month review.
What this means for your journey: if you are flying via Heathrow while schedules are still settling, check your flight status directly with your airline before setting off, and see our /taxis/ and /public-transport/ guides for getting to the airport if your timings change at short notice.