Martin Rolfe said a September air traffic control outage left Nats handling two system failures that disrupted flights and made him, in his words, “the most disliked person in the UK in September.” The failures hit both control centres and forced airlines to deal with cancellations and delays across the month.
He told the Airlines 2026 conference in London that the 8 September problem stopped flights taking off and landing, while a further glitch on 21 September at Nats’s second control centre at Prestwick in Scotland led to more than 200 flight cancellations. Airlines said the 8 September disruption cost them tens of millions of pounds.
Rolfe at Airlines 2026
Rolfe opened his remarks by saying: “My name is Martin Rolfe, I’m the CEO of Nats – or as I like to think of myself, the most disliked person in the UK in September.” He also said he had not considered resigning despite repeated calls from airlines, and described ignoring Michael O’Leary’s demands as “quite enjoying.”
He said: “If I am the cause of that disruption, I would expect to come in for a lot of flak.” He added: “We do these jobs knowing that they come with that level of personal responsibility and accountability and that’s where I think we’re most tested.”
Prestwick and the second glitch
The second failure came after the 8 September incident, which Nats said stemmed from a problem in its flight control systems. Nats expected to handle about 8,000 flights on 8 September, but only 6,000 flights flew.
On 21 September, the glitch at Prestwick in Scotland brought fresh cancellations and renewed pressure on Rolfe from Ryanair and other airlines. Michael O’Leary has demanded his sacking for several years after flights were grounded on the August bank holiday in 2023, and Neal McMahon later criticised Rolfe on stage for saying Nats’s operations are usually reliable.
Civil Aviation Authority review
Rolfe said the causes of both September events were unprecedented but had been fixed, while adding that nobody can credibly promise a complex technical system will never fault again. “Will never recur” was how he described the particular faults, even as he stopped short of saying another outage could not happen.
The 8 September disruption is under a government-commissioned inquiry, and the Civil Aviation Authority is reviewing the findings before reporting to Heidi Alexander early in 2027. For passengers and airlines, that leaves the immediate operational fix in place, but the formal review process still running toward a report that could shape how Nats is judged next.
