Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe has come under fire.
The chief of Britain’s beleaguered air traffic control provider Nats still has the confidence of the Government, Downing Street has said, after thousands of passengers faced travel chaos following a system issue on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of travellers were caught up in the disruption, which continued on Wednesday with further cancellations and delays expected as airlines deal with the knock-on impacts at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said as of Wednesday at 11.30am, 291 flights had been cancelled that day and that more than 2,000 flights over Tuesday and Wednesday had been affected.
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe has come under fire from Wizz Air following the fault, while Ryanair called on Mr Rolfe to resign.
On Wednesday morning, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander met Mr Rolfe where she raised “significant concerns” regarding the scale of the disruption on behalf of the industry and passengers, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters.
The spokesperson added: “She’s 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. She set a deadline for them to report back in a week’s time.
“And through our Civil Aviation Bill, which returns to Parliament today, we will make sure air passengers get stronger protection of rights around cancellations, delays and passenger support.”
Asked whether Ms Alexander and the Prime Minister still have confidence in Mr Rolfe, the spokesperson said: “Well, you’ve got the Transport Secretary’s instruction to the Nats CEO.
“I think 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 whether this meant the Government’s confidence in the head of air traffic control was conditional on the outcome of the investigation, the spokesperson replied: “We have confidence in him and he’s been tasked with the investigation, which will report in a week’s time.”
Mr Rolfe has apologised for the incident, which he said he took “full responsibility” for.
