UK authorities and airlines demand answers from air traffic control operator after radar issue

Key Points

• The UK's Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, has summoned NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to address a flight disruption issue that caused over 150 flight cancellations.
• The disruption was due to a “technical issue” at NATS' Swanwick control center, which limited flight operations in the London area for more than two hours.
• This incident follows previous software-related failures in the NATS system, raising concerns about the reliability of air traffic management.
• Industry experts noted that while technical failures are common in various sectors, it is critical to have effective contingency plans to maintain safety and operational efficiency.

LONDON (AP) — British authorities and airlines are demanding answers from the nation’s air traffic control operator after a technology glitch led to widespread flight cancellations and delays for the second time in two years.

More than 150 flights were cancelled across the U.K. on Wednesday when a radar problem at the Swanwick control center forced the National Air Traffic Service, or NATS, to limit the number of aircraft flying in the London area. The problem was reported at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday and the system was fully operational by 5:10 p.m., NATS said.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander met with NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe on Thursday, saying she wanted to know what happened and how to prevent a recurrence. Meanwhile, two major airlines criticized the control service for failing to learn from a 2023 incident that forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights.

“This was an isolated event and there is no evidence of malign activity,’’ Alexander said after the meeting. “I will continue to receive regular updates.”

NATS on Thursday said the flight disruptions were due to a “radar-related issue.” The controller initially said only that there had been a “technical issue” at the Swanwick air traffic control center on the south coast of England.

“This was a radar-related issue which was resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system during which time we reduced traffic to ensure safety,’’ the service said. “There is no evidence that this was cyber related.”

Wednesday’s problems were relatively limited when compared with the disruption that occurred on Aug. 28, 2023, when a software issue severely limited the number of flight plans NATS could process.

That led to more than 2,000 flight cancellations over two days, with some 700,000 passengers affected by cancellations or flight delays, according to the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.

David Morgan, the chief operating officer of U.K.-based discount carrier easyJet, said he wanted to know what NATS is doing “to ensure issues don’t continue.”

Morgan’s counterpart at Dublin-based Ryanair went further, demanding Rolfe’s resignation.

“It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of NATS,” Ryanair's Neal McMahon said. “It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August 2023 NATS system outage.”

But industry experts said it was “unrealistic” to expect an air traffic management system to function without any technical failures.

“There are technical failures in all industries,” Graham Lake, a former director general of the air traffic management industry association Canso, told the BBC. “I’m a regular rail user. Certainly there are signal failures practically every day, so we accept technical failures. Radio programs go off the air occasionally, technical failures are inevitable. The point is that you have to … plan the contingency and make sure that the operation remains safe and effective.’’