STILL NO ACTION FROM NATS CEO, MARTIN ROLFE, AS MORE PASSENGERS SUFFER DISRUPTIONS TO/FROM GATWICK UNTIL MON 2 OCT

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Tues 26 Sept) called on the CAA to immediately intervene and protect passengers from further disruptions to flights to/from Gatwick Airport following Gatwick Airport’s request for airlines to cancel flights until Mon 2 Oct due to the ongoing NATS ATC staff shortages. This follows years of NATS mismanagement causing unnecessary disruptions throughout the UK, including in the last number of weeks, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Manchester, and now 4 weeks of consistent cancellations at Gatwick Airport.

Ryanair will not be cancelling any flights to/from Gatwick Airport due to NATS’s self-inflicted ongoing staff shortages.

It is unacceptable that NATS are still not adequately staffing UK ATC with thousands of passengers unnecessarily suffering delays. Ryanair pays NATS almost €100m p.a. for an ATC service that is repeatedly short staffed and which, on 28^th Aug, collapsed completely causing the cancellation of over 2,000 flights (over 360,000 passengers) and long delays to more than 5,000 flights (900,000 passengers). This shambles has been followed with more flight disruptions at Gatwick Airport on six separate occasions over the past four weeks and now Gatwick Airport is imposing a daily cap of 800 flights until Mon 2 Oct and asking airlines to cancel flights, which Ryanair will not be doing.

Ryanair has called on NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, to fix UK ATC staff shortages or immediately resign and hand over to someone who is fit for the job of managing an ATC organisation with adequate resourcing and resilience to provide a service for passengers travelling to/from the UK without disruption which is entirely down to poor planning and mismanagement by NATS.

A Ryanair spokesperson said:

“It is unacceptable that airlines have been asked to cancel flights to/from Gatwick Airport for the next six days (until 2 Oct) as a result of NATS’s failure to adequately staff UK ATC. It is the most basic requirement to hire and train adequate staff numbers including standby coverage. NATS has been a shambles for years, causing unnecessary disruptions at UK airports including Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester, and now Gatwick Airport for the past four weeks including the complete system meltdown on Mon 28 Aug, which brought UK aviation to its knees – a mess that has still not been explained.

It is clear that NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe has taken no action to resolve these ATC staff shortages and should now do the right thing and step down as NATS CEO so that someone competent can do the job. We call on the CAA to immediately intervene and protect passengers from this ongoing UK ATC shambles.”