UK airlines have intensified their attacks on National Air Traffic Services (NATS) after a 21 September systems glitch at its Prestwick centre triggered hundreds of cancellations and delays across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. easyJet said the latest problem "once again calls into question the resilience of NATS’ systems", while Ryanair demanded the resignation of chief executive Martin Rolfe and vowed to send the agency another compensation bill. Industry body Airlines UK complained of “yet another NATS failure days after its report into the major 8 September outage,” arguing that repeated disruptions are undermining confidence during a crucial booking period for corporate and leisure travel. Aviation analytics firm Cirium counted 277 cancellations on the day—many affecting key business routes between Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester and London. NATS insists the Prestwick incident was a "connectivity issue" unrelated to the earlier software defect, but carrier anger is mounting. Trade association ABTA called the situation “simply not good enough”, noting that travel companies face a deluge of rebooking costs and potential EU261 liability even when the root cause lies with the ANSP. Corporate-travel managers are now reviewing airline-preferred-carrier lists and contingency agreements, while some multinationals are instructing staff to favour rail for domestic hops until system stability improves. The episode adds urgency to the CAA’s newly-announced resilience review and strengthens calls for ring-fenced investment in next-generation flight-data platforms. For globally mobile employees—even those merely transiting Heathrow or Manchester—the message is clear: monitor flight status to the last minute, maintain flexible fares, and ensure travel insurance policies cover accommodation and re-routing costs caused by air-navigation failures.
Source: Travel Weekly
