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The boss of Ryanair has criticised UK NATS – the air traffic control service – saying it was “not acceptable” the system had gone down without a backup.
In a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Michael O’Leary said: “We still haven’t had an explanation from them [about] what exactly caused this failure, and where were their backup systems?
“It’s simply not acceptable that UK NATS would allow their systems to be taken down and everybody’s flights get cancelled.”
Mr O’Leary added his airline cancelled 250 flights on Monday, and another 70 would be scrapped until the end of the day on Tuesday.
Read more: Britons sleeping on floors in airports – live updates
Hundreds of flights around the UK have been cancelled after yesterday’s air traffic control disruption. The incident on Bank Holiday Monday meant flight plans had to be uploaded to systems manually, slowing or cancelling air traffic across the country.
Thousands of passengers were affected by yesterday’s disruption – and many are still waiting for their flights today.
Some 790 departures and 785 arrivals at UK airports were cancelled on Monday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium – amounting to one third of all scheduled flights in and out of the country.
Around 281 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, including more than 70 at both London Gatwick and London Heathrow.
The air traffic control failure was caused by flight data received by NATS, an initial investigation has found.
The company’s primary and back-up systems responded to the data by “suspending automatic processing to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information…
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