Ryanair cancelled more than 1,000 September flights as NATS boss faces calls to quit

Ryanair cancelled more than 1,000 flights in September, partly blaming the recent “collapse” of Britain’s air traffic control system, the airline revealed on Friday.

Ryanair said the cancellations were due to two air traffic control issues at NATS, Britain’s National Air Traffic Services, within a fortnight last month, as well as ATC strikes in Belgium and disruption across Europe from volcanic ash clouds from Mount Etna eruptions (http://www.leighjournal.co.uk/news/national/26600656.ryanair-reveals-1-000-flights-cancelled-last-month-amid-uk-air-traffic-chaos/).

The boss of NATS, Martin Rolfe, has come under pressure to step down after a spate of air-traffic issues caused thousands of flights to be cancelled across the industry, impacting hundreds of thousands of passengers. The most recent was caused by a “connectivity issue” at its Prestwick centre in Scotland, unrelated to an ATC software fault on September 8 which caused widespread flight chaos.

Ryanair has been among those calling for Mr Rolfe to resign. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has called a meeting with NATS chairman Sir Warren East, the former chief executive of Rolls-Royce, in the coming weeks to discuss the problems.

Ryanair’s figures showed it operated over 111,700 flights last month and carried 20.1 million passengers, up 4% year on year, with its load factor steady at 94% (https://www.sharecast.com/news/news-and-announcements/ryanair-passenger-numbers-rise-4-in-september—23739832.html).

Wizz Air also reported September data: 7.78 million passengers, up 24% year on year, with capacity up 25.3%. But it said it would cut its flight programme by 5% over the second half of 2026 due to wider Iran-war pressures on the travel sector and soaring fuel costs (https://britbrief.co.uk/weather/air/ryanair-cancels-1000-flights-after-atc-collapse-blamed.html).