experienced a technical issue on 8 September<\/a>, the third major technical fault in three years.<\/p>\n\u201cNats\u2019 air traffic controllers have already told our ops\u2019 controllers it\u2019s a re-run of something similar to what happened in 2023. It\u2019s a bogus flight plan that has brought down the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet the overpaid failure Martin Rolfe, who runs Nats, is out there telling us \u2018oh no, it\u2019s something entirely different\u2019,\u201d Mr O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n
A Nats spokesperson confirmed to The Independent it was not \u200bthe same issue as 2023, when more than 700,000 passengers saw their flight plans disrupted after Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the issue this week had affected the flight data system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the same Martin Rolfe who told the Houses of Parliament Transport Committee in 2023, that the 2023 system collapse was a one-off event,\u201d Mr O\u2019Leary continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also assured parliament that if it does happen again, there\u2019ll be an effective backup system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve learned this week that there was no backup system,\u201d Mr O\u2019Leary claimed. \u201cYour assurances are worthless.\u201d<\/p>\n
The claim that Nats does not have a backup system could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Leary also criticised Ms Alexander for asking Mr Rolfe to come up with a report in one week on what caused the aviation issues. \u201cThat\u2019s like asking a failed student to mark his own exam paper,\u201d Mr O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartin Rolfe has demonstrated again and again and again over the last three years that he is incompetent. He is not fit to run UK air traffic control, and he\u2019s certainly not the person to repair whatever is going wrong with this shambolic system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe airlines are facing hundreds of thousands of discommoded passengers, cancelled flights, claims for compensation and right-to-care expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 250 flights during travel chaos this week.<\/p>\n
Around 2,163 flights were affected during the technical issue on Tuesday, with delays and cancellations continuing into Wednesday, 9 September at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester.<\/p>\n
A Nats spokesperson said: \u201cDue to the continued efforts of airlines, airports and others across the industry, recovery of the aviation network is proceeding well. We recognise that some passengers are still experiencing disruption, and we apologise sincerely to all those affected by Tuesday\u2019s technical issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very much aware of the additional pressure this has placed on colleagues across the industry, and thank them for their continued hard work. A full investigation is already underway. We will report to the Secretary of State for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more: Ryanair boss accused of \u2018trivialising\u2019 rape in bizarre rant about other airlines<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-621983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}