CALLS AGAIN ON OVERPAID £1.3M NATS CEO MARTIN ROLFE TO QUIT

Ryanair, the UK’s No.1 airline, today (Thurs 26^th Oct) condemned the ruling by the UK CAA to allow NATS to increase its already high ATC charges by another 26% from 2023 to 2027 despite repeated UK ATC delays this summer and the ATC system collapse on 28August, which caused over 2,000 UK flights to be cancelled and another 5,000 flights to be delayed. NATS should not be rewarded for these repeated failures with a 26% price increase.

Ryanair already pays NATs almost €100m per annum for UK ATC services that are repeatedly short staffed, repeatedly impose capacity “restrictions” and flight delays and which NATS allowed to collapse on 28 August causing flight cancellations for 360,000 passengers and long delays for another 900,000 passengers. NATS should be obliged by the CAA to reimburse airlines the costs (£15m in Ryanair’s case) they suffered as a result of these ATC failures. Until UK NATS provide full UK ATC staffing at weekends during the busy summer season no price increases should be awarded.

Ryanair believes there will be no improvement in NATS rosters, efficiency or services, until its vastly overpaid CEO Martin Rolfe is sacked and the CAA should not be rewarding NATS for its incompetence and failure with a 26% increase in fees.

Ryanair calls on the CAA to immediately reverse this illogical decision to reward NATS for its repeated failures, incompetence and mismanagement. The CAA should be protecting UK passengers from further disruptions and from further NATS price increases until NATS provide the ATC service which it is already overcharging for while paying dividends to its shareholders averaging £50m per year.   

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said:

“We are astonished at the CAA’s decision to award NATS another 26% increase in their already high charges after a summer where NATS repeatedly delayed flights due to badly managed staff rosters and mismanaged operations which collapsed altogether on 28 August last in circumstances which remain unexplained. NATS continues to call for last-minute schedule cuts at Gatwick through Sept and October due to mismanaged rosters in the ATC tower.

NATS should not be rewarded for its mismanagement with further price increases which will only go to fund more undeserved dividends to its shareholders. What we need in NATS is new and competent management and the Govt should start by sacking the overpaid, but incompetent CEO, Martin Rolfe.

Ryanair calls on the CAA to reverse this illogical decision to award a 26% price increase to NATS and believes no increase should be awarded until NATS delivers the service it is already being paid for without staff shortages, without capacity restrictions and without complete system shutdowns such as that delivered by Martin Rolfe and his team on 28 August last.”