Following several technical issues with air traffic control systems, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has published a statement directed at the British transport secretary Heidi Alexander. In his open letter, he is asking to replace Martin Rolfe, CEO of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) air traffic control services.
Ryanair published its statement on 9 September 2026, after the NATS ATC system experienced a technical issue one day earlier. According to the budget carrier, the issue caused delays for 65,000 of its passengers, and over 250 Ryanair flights had to be cancelled. Reports say 2,163 flights throughout the United Kingdom were affected on 8 and 9 September. More than 330,000 passengers were affected overall, according to Airlines UK, while Heathrow and British Airways suffered the largest number of cancellations on Wednesday.
Ryanair compares the travel chaos to a similar event in August 2023, when a flight plan processing failure caused a system outage. An investigation showed that a “one in 15 million” event, including a flight plan with two identically named but separate waypoints, forced a shutdown of the system.
Thousands of passengers have faced frustrating delays and cancellations, and we understand the anger this has caused.
— Department for Transport (@transportgovuk) September 9, 2026
The Transport Secretary @Heidi_Labour met with NATS leadership this morning to demand answers and requested a rapid review within one week. The UK’s independent… pic.twitter.com/YVD86U92Qq
At the time, NATS CEO Martin Rolfe promised that a similar event wouldn’t occur again thanks to a backup system. However, the budget airline states that the 8 September issue proved that backup system to be useless.
As a result, Michael O’Leary directed an open letter at British transport secretary Heidi Alexander to ask for Martin Rolfe to be replaced.
“Martin Rolfe’s position as NATS CEO is untenable. We don’t need more ‘investigations’, we don’t need more ‘reports’, and we don’t need another Parliamentary Committee hearing where Martin Rolfe will promise change, will promise resilience, and will promise an effective backup system. Martin Rolfe is an overpaid (£1.4m p.a.) failure. It is time for his removal, and it is time that somebody competent was appointed to run UK ATC, which is one of Europe’s most expensive ATC systems, and yet it keeps repeatedly failing,” O’Leary wrote.
According to the Ryanair CEO, UK NATS has increasingly been paying dividends to its shareholders, while failing to invest in a resilient primary system and an effective backup system.
“Transport Minister Heidi Alexander, who owns 49% of NATS, must today demand that failing Martin Rolfe must quit, or be dismissed. Airlines and passengers serving the UK keep picking up the tab for Martin Rolfe’s repeated failures. It is time for this expensive, failing CEO to go, and allow UK NATS to be led by somebody competent and capable of delivering a resilient system and a backup system that actually works,” O’Leary concludes.
Ryanair calls on Heidi Alexander to sack overpaid, failing NATS CEO Martin Rolfe pic.twitter.com/XhhUviQUFB
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) September 10, 2026
Although at the time of writing NATS has not responded directly on O’Leary’s statement, it has said the issue was not caused by the same problem as in 2023.
“Due to the continued efforts of airlines, airports and others across the industry, recovery of the aviation network is proceeding well. We recognise that some passengers are still experiencing disruption, and we apologise sincerely to all those affected by Tuesday’s technical issue. We are very much aware of the additional pressure this has placed on colleagues across the industry, and thank them for their continued hard work. A full investigation is already underway. We will report to the Secretary of State for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority next week,” a NATS spokesperson told The Independent.
Following the incident, transport minister Heidi Alexander stated that she believes the outage could have been avoided. The Civil Aviation Authority will therefore conduct an independent review.
