Airlines criticise air traffic control as second glitch causes more disruption

Airlines have criticised the UK's air traffic control after a second technical glitch triggered widespread flight delays and cancellations. EasyJet described Monday's incident as "once again calls into question the resilience" of the system, while Wizz Air characterised the situation as a "national assurance crisis" successful Nats, which oversees the nation's aerial traffic. The disruption originated from a fault at Prestwick in Ayrshire, affecting airports across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England and leading to the delay of dozens of flights. Nats attributed the problem to a "connectivity issue" and insisted it had "nothing to do" with a separate software defect at Swanwick that caused the cancellation of 2,000 flights earlier in September. Although the underlying cause of Monday's disruption has been resolved, Nats reported it was operating at "full capacity". A spokesperson added they were "focused connected moving with our customers to retrieve their residual delays and assistance get their operations backmost to normal". According to Cirium, as of 13:45 BST, at least 200 flights had been cancelled or failed to depart on Monday, comprising 100 arrivals destined for the UK and 99 departures from UK airports. EasyJet suffered the greatest impact, with 47 of its 670 scheduled departures cancelled, whereas British Airways recorded 11 cancellations out of 513 planned flights. Airlines UK stated that both passengers and carriers "deserve better" following "yet different Nats failure". Yvonne Moynihan, managing director of Wizz Air UK, urged "urgent reform" of Nats and said she lacked "assurance successful its existent leadership". When questioned by BBC Radio 4's World at One programme about whether Nats chief Martin Rolfe should resign, Moynihan replied: "We request to look astatine the enactment astatine the top. But much than that, what are the committee of directors doing?" Jet2's Steve Heapy called for "urgent and accountable" enactment to strengthen the UK's air traffic control infrastructure. Ryanair renewed its demand for Rolfe's resignation, asserting he had failed to deliver "either a reliable strategy oregon an effectual back-up". The latest outage disrupted 140 Ryanair flights and affected approximately 25,000 passengers. British Airways labelled the episode "yet different method responsibility with Nats" as "disappointing".