Ryanair blames UK air traffic controller shortages for delays

Almost 6,000 Ryanair passengers were delayed on more than 30 early morning UK flights yesterday (Thursday).

The budget airline blamed air traffic control staff shortages for the disruption.

Ryanair claimed that an “avoidable” lack of staff caused almost eight hours of cumulative flight delays before 9am.

UK air traffic control delays have already surged by more than 80% this year, the carrier noted.

The criticism came the day after air traffic control provider Nats reported its performance for July, handling 253,353 flights, up 5.1% on the previous month and a 2.1% year on year increase.

The service saw its busiest day since pre-pandemic 2019 on July 17 with 8,538 flights, just 50 short of the record set before Covid.

The busiest weekend of the year was recorded on July 11-12 with more than 16,000 flights.

Operations control director Steve Fox said: “Our focus is on making sure that we always keep the skies safe and that everyone can get where they want to be as smoothly and as punctually as possible.”

However, Ryanair chief operations officer Neal McMahon accused Nats of failing with its staff planning.

“Once again, passengers are paying the price for Nats’ ongoing failure to properly staff the UK ATC service. This is particularly unacceptable during the peak summer travel season when airlines and passengers rightly expect a resilient and properly resourced ATC service,” he said.

“These were not weather delays or technical failures, these were because Nats cannot manage the most basic of tasks – staff planning. 

“UK passengers deserve a reliable ATC service that is properly staffed and capable of handling peak summer traffic, not repeated delays caused by staffing failures that are entirely within Nats’ control.”

A Nats spokesperson toldTravel Weekly: “Nats continues to be one of the best-performing air navigation service providers in Europe, contributing very little delay relative to the volume and complexity of the air traffic we handle safely every day. Just one in every 1,000 UK flights experience an air traffic control-related delay.

“Like any complex operation, there can occasionally be short periods where staffing or other operational factors affect traffic flow.

“Safety is always our priority, and we have well-established plans in place to maintain operational resilience.

“We continue to recruit and train air traffic controllers and work closely with airlines and airports to minimise delays and disruption for passengers.”