R
yanair has demanded the resignation of the boss of the UK’s largest air site visitors management supplier after flight caps had been imposed at Gatwick Airport.
The Dublin-based airline referred to as for National Air Traffic Services (Nats) chief govt Martin Rolfe to “step down” as dozens of every day flights have been cancelled on the West Sussex airport this week on account of ATC employees shortages.
Ryanair, which has a comparatively small operation on the airport, stated it is not going to axe flights as a result of measure, which was imposed on Monday.
It is essentially the most fundamental requirement to rent and prepare satisfactory employees numbers
The cap on flights comes after Nats suffered a technical glitch inflicting main disruption throughout UK airports on August 28.
Ryanair stated in a press release: “Gatwick Airport is imposing a daily cap of 800 flights until Monday October 2 and asking airlines to cancel flights, which Ryanair will not be doing.”
It went on: “It is unacceptable that airlines have been asked to cancel flights to/from Gatwick Airport for the next six days as a result of Nats’s failure to adequately staff UK ATC.
“It is the most basic requirement to hire and train adequate staff numbers including standby coverage.
“Nats has been a shambles for years, causing unnecessary disruptions at UK airports including Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester, and now Gatwick Airport for the past four weeks, including the complete system meltdown on Monday August 28 which brought UK aviation to its knees – a mess that has still not been explained.
“It is clear that Nats CEO Martin Rolfe has taken no action to resolve these ATC staff shortages and should now do the right thing and step down as Nats CEO so that someone competent can do the job.
“We call on the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) to immediately intervene and protect passengers from this ongoing UK ATC shambles.”
Ryanair stated it pays Nats nearly 100 million euros (£87 million) per 12 months for an ATC service that’s “repeatedly short-staffed”.
A spokesman for Nats stated: “We have worked very closely with Gatwick airport throughout.
“Given the levels of sickness we have experienced over the last few weeks we believe it is the responsible thing to do to limit the number of flights this week in order to reduce the risk of daily disruption to passengers using the airport.
“We have trained as many air traffic controllers as possible this year in the Gatwick tower and have safely managed over 180,000 flights so far.
“However, with 30% of tower staff unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid, we cannot manage the number of flights that were originally planned for this week.
Nats previously said it is “working in line” with a staffing plan agreed with Gatwick bosses when it took over the supply of ATC companies on the airport in October 2022, which incorporates coaching additional controllers.
