Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has issued an ultimatum to the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) boss after travel chaos spread across the UK this week.
CEO Martin Rolfe has come under intense pressure after a “technical issue” disrupted thousands of flights, leaving many grounded and Britons stranded in airports.
Airlines, including Ryanair and Wizz, have called for Mr Rolfe’s resignation over his handling of the debacle, which affected some 330,000 passengers.
Asked if she was seeking the Nats boss’s resignation on GB News, Ms Alexander said she did not think the travel chaos had been “unavoidable”.
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The Transport Secretary said she had summoned Mr Rolfe for a “full and frank” discussion on the fallout from the catastrophic technical fault.
“I expressed the very significant anger and frustration that passengers understandably have, and that the airlines understandably have as well.”
Ms Alexander said she had demanded a full report within seven days, due next Wednesday.
She said she had made clear that a report on what happened must be on her desk within seven days, adding that it would be delivered next Wednesday.
However, the Transport Secretary said she was not prepared to allow Nats to investigate itself.
“I’m also not content for Nats to be marking their own homework,” she warned.
Within 24 hours of the disruption beginning, Ms Alexander said she had also met with the chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Nats’ independent regulator.
She has asked the CAA to conduct a separate review into the incident, with its findings expected within six months.
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Ms Alexander said there were “tough questions” to be answered about planned IT upgrades, the resilience of Nats’ systems, and whether adequate backup systems were in place.
The Government is also facing calls to address wider questions around compensation and consumer redress for passengers affected by the disruption.
“I’m determined to grip this, because the level of disruption that we saw was totally unacceptable.
“Passengers undoubtedly deserve better,” she said.
The warning comes as the Nats CEO collected £2.2million in bonuses over the past three years despite overseeing repeated system failures.
Mr Rolfe received bonuses and incentive payments spanning periods that included two other major air traffic control collapses, last year and in 2023.
His pay is around 38 times the average UK salary of £39,000 and roughly 15 times that of Nats’ best-paid air traffic controllers.
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