Wizz Air, Ryanair Demand Major Overhaul of NATS After UK Flight Disruptions
Calls for Reform After Repeated Air Traffic Control Failures
Background: Recent Disruptions and Industry Response
LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - European budget carriers Wizz Air and Ryanair on Tuesday called for an overhaul of Britain's air traffic control provider NATS following a new technical issue that disrupted hundreds of flights at key airports in the country.
Wizz Air's Statement on NATS Performance
"A critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly bring the aviation system to a standstill. NATS is simply not fit for purpose in its current form," a spokesperson for Wizz Air said in a statement.
Ryanair's Criticism and Call for Leadership Change
Rival Ryanair also criticised the agency and called for the resignation of its CEO, Martin Rolfe.
"Following the 2023 collapse, we were told lessons would be learned. We were told 'resilience would improve'. We were told the systems had been fixed. Yet here we are again," Ryanair Chief Operations Officer Neal McMahon said.
Regulatory and Official Responses
NATS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Review of Contingency Plans
In 2024, Britain's aviation regulator said NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages after the automatic processing of flight plans had malfunctioned a year earlier, causing chaos across Britain's airports.
Expectations from the Civil Aviation Authority
The UK's civil aviation body on Tuesday said it had been in touch with NATS over the incident and expects the latter to share a full report on the incident.
Potential Further Actions
"We will then consider whether any further steps need to be taken to help secure the safe reliability of the UK’s air traffic control system," a spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority said.
(Reporting by Pushkala AripakaEditing by Tomasz Janowski)