In a crowded market, the National Air Traffic Control Service (Nats) still has a good claim to be our most croaking public service. Yesterday’s collapse of the system, which has led so far to more than 2,000 flights being cancelled, is hardly the first such failure. Three years ago a similar collapse over the August Bank Holiday weekend led to 700,000 passengers being delayed or prevented from travelling altogether.
Few of those delayed this week, however, seem quite as furious as Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary, who has renewed his feud with Nats CEO Martin Rolfe, demanding that he resign over the issue. This repeats O’Leary’s demand in 2023, when he lambasted Rolfe: ‘Your systems engineers were drinking tea at home rather than being on site to deal with a total systems collapse.’ Rolfe replied by accusing O’Leary of being ‘abrasive’, which is not the most original of observations, as many a Ryanair passenger can attest when they have complained about being marooned in Malaga or wherever.
Ryanair is not exactly the most customer-friendly organisation in the world, but then you could say pretty much the same about Nats. Abrasive or not, O’Leary was correct in his jibe about engineers being at home. The engineer charged with repairing the system in 2023 was working at home that day, and it took him 90 minutes to reach the office. Working from home might be appropriate for some people, but surely not in such a safety critical business as air traffic control. I don’t think airline passengers would be terribly impressed if Ryanair informed them that their pilot would be working from home and operating the plane remotely.
To compound the 2023 breakdown, it emerged that it had been caused by a plane which wasn’t even taking off or landing in Britain. The plane was flying from the US to Paris and only passing through a corner of UK airspace but happened to pass two way points with the same code number, which confused the system.
It is not acceptable for air traffic control to fail in such a way. And if it can’t cope now, how is it supposed to cope with extra traffic generated by new runways for Heathrow and Gatwick?
Nats, by the way, is a public-private partnership, having been partially privatised. Perhaps Andy Burnham, who has made a big thing about bringing public services under greater public control, could use Nats as a starting point. Whatever the merits of privatisation, Nats does seem to have been allowed to pass into a holding pattern of little accountability. Its charges to airlines have increased 28 per cent in the past four years, with Ryanair alone paying it £87 million. It is not unreasonable to expect a seamless and reliable service for the money.
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