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| Britain |
| UK summons air traffic boss after major outage as flights slowly resume |
| 2026-09-09 |
| LONDON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Airlines intensified their criticism of Britain's aviation systems on Wednesday after a major air traffic failure left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded, while ministers called in the flight control boss to explain the shutdown. Flights resumed at major airports across the country after the hours-long outage on Tuesday, which resulted in the cancellation of 2,000 flights and ramped up pressure on air traffic control provider NATS and its boss Martin Rolfe. Ryanair (RYA.I), opens new tab said NATS had told it that the cause of shutdown was the same problem behind the last major air traffic outage in 2023 which cost airlines £100 million ($135 million). The carrier has repeatedly called for Rolfe to step down. Transport minister Heidi Alexander will later on Wednesday hear directly from Rolfe after she summoned him to explain the fault, amid concerns over the resilience of the infrastructure and technology. The NATS shutdown in August 2023 caused travel chaos, and there was also a radar-related technical issue in July 2025, which affected major airports including Britain's largest, Heathrow. "I am seeking assurances that lessons will be learned and systems that support aviation are up to the job," Alexander said on X. |
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