Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary, has branded the º£½ÇÊÓƵ's air traffic control organisation as "hopeless" and is demanding the dismissal of its chief following a scathing report by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) detailing a series of failures at NATS.
O'Leary criticised the head of NATS for being "overpaid and underperforming" in light of the findings from the CAA, which released a report this morning that scrutinised last year's catastrophic air traffic control breakdown, as reported by .
The technical failure was found to have affected over 700,000 passengers, causing cancellation woes for 300,000 individuals, extreme delays for 95,000 (exceeding three hours), and less severe hold-ups for another 300,000 people.
Ryanair contended that the report confirmed the lack of sufficient backup protocols at NATS, countering claims previously made by the air traffic body.
"º£½ÇÊÓƵ Transport Minister, Louise Haigh, must now take immediate action to fix NATS hopeless service, and reform º£½ÇÊÓƵ ATC (air traffic control) so that airlines and passengers can avoid further delays/disruptions at the hands of NATS," stated O'Leary today.
According to the CAA, there were only seven manually operated terminals available on 28 August during the system collapse, but it was noted that NATS staff lacked the necessary training to input flight plans. The regulatory body also highlighted NATS' delayed response to the malfunction.
The report issued over 30 recommendations for NATS to prevent widespread impact from future technical failures. The sentiment was clear: this must 'never be allowed to happen again'.
However, Ryanair questioned NATS' assertion that it has since "acted to address a number of findings arising from its own internal investigation after the incident".
Easyjet's chief executive, Johan Lundgren, stated that the report made it clear that airlines and passengers were "severely let down by NATS due to its failure of resilience and lack of planning". He added, "Airlines were then left picking up the pieces and costs which ran into millions," and emphasised that a failure of this scale must "never be allowed to happen again."
Following the publication of the report this morning, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh commented: "The NATS IT failure last year was an unprecedented event that we all hope never happens again, so I welcome the final report and its recommendations to strengthen the sector and restore passenger confidence."
She continued, "I've said before that I will be the passenger-in-chief and my priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly that's why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible."
