Ryanair, the UK’s no.1 airline, today (06 Sept) rejected the “findings” in the NATS Preliminary Report into the UK’s ATC system failure on Mon 28^th Aug last.

Ryanair pointed to numerous inaccuracies in this Preliminary Report, including;

NATS claims 1,500 flights were cancelled, whereas Eurocontrol confirm “over 2,000” fewer flights over the UK that day

NATS claims just 575 flights were “delayed”, which is nonsense when over 1,000 Ryanair flights (alone) to, from and over the UK that day were delayed. 

NATS claims that UK air space “remained open” during the disruption, which is irrelevant when over 2,000 flights were cancelled.

NATS claims to have only 4 hours of back up flight plans. Why is this not 24 hours?

NATS knew of this system collapse at 08:32hrs, but the airlines were not advised until 3 hours later. Ryanair was first notified by Eurocontrol (not NATS) just after 11:00hrs on Mon 28^th.

NATS 2^nd line engineering team were “supporting remotely to reduce travel time”, which is again a cover up of the fact that they were sitting at home doing nothing useful.

Most importantly, NATS fails to explain why 1 inaccurate flight plan brought down not just the NATS ATC system, but also its “back up” system. Clearly NATS backup system is useless when the entire infrastructure can be brought down by 1 inaccurate flight plan filing.

NATS claims that it is “not within its remit” to provide cost reimbursement and compensation for airlines. This again is false. NATS are free to, and should provide, cost reimbursement to airlines for the millions of pounds in hotels, meal costs and alternative transport reimbursements. NATS has a moral obligation to reimburse its customers for its lamentable incompetence, which caused the cancellation of over 2,000 flights (over 360,000 passengers) and delayed more than 5,000 flights (900,000 passengers) on Mon 28 & Tues 29 Aug.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“This Preliminary NATS Report is factually inaccurate. It ridiculously understates the number of flights that were cancelled or delayed through the NATS system failure on Mon 28^th Aug last. In Ryanair’s case, we suffered over 370 flight cancellations (over 63,000 passengers), and more than 1,500 flight delays over the 2 days (Mon & Tues over 270,000 passengers delayed). This whitewash report, which understates the number of flights cancellations and flight delays, fails to explain why 1 inaccurate flight plan brought down not just the NATS ATC system, but also the backup system.

NATS should explain why its backup system failed, and what they are doing to introduce an effective backup system, rather than the rubbish they have at the moment. They should also explain why their 2^nd line engineering team was sitting at home (operating “remotely to reduce travel time”), instead of being on site and on the job.

Finally, we do not accept NATS claim that it is “not within remit” to provide cost reimbursement to customers. Ryanair pays NATS almost €100m p.a. for an ATC service that is repeatedly short staffed and on the 28^thAug, collapsed altogether. The least NATS could and should do is to reimburse its airline customers for the tens of millions of pounds they have spent reimbursing passengers for their hotel, meals and transport expenses, which were entirely due to NATS system failure, and NATS backup system failure on Mon 28^th Aug last.

If NATS fail to reimburse its customers for these expenses, then Secretary of Transport Mark Harper should intervene (as the largest shareholder in NATS), and instruct NATS to reimburse NATS airline customers for these right to care expenses.

This Report, which is full of false figures about flight cancellations and delays, and avoids any explanation of why NATS backup system failed so spectacularly will not solve this problem unless NATS accepts responsibility for its incompetence and reimburses airlines and passengers for the avoidable right to care expenses they suffered due to NATS failure on Mon 28^th Aug last.”