Ryanair cancelled over 1,000 flights across UK airports during September 2026 following two air traffic control failures within a fortnight, according to Northwich Guardian.
Major UK Airports Impacted
On September 8 alone, more than 1,300 flights were grounded at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Stansted airports due to a National Air Traffic Services (NATS) system failure.
Contributing Factors to Disruptions
Flight operations were also affected by strikes among Belgian air traffic controllers and volcanic ash clouds from Mount Etna, further exacerbating delays and cancellations across British airspace.
Later in the month, connectivity issues at the NATS Scottish control centre at Prestwick caused additional flight cancellations within UK airspace.
Official Responses and Industry Impact
Ryanair
Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon publicly criticised NATS leadership, calling CEO Martin Rolfe an “overpaid failure” and demanding his resignation. NATS attributed the primary September 8 outage to a “spurious flight plan.” This fault mirrored a similar system collapse in August 2023, which stranded approximately 700,000 passengers due to a single French flight plan failure.
Martin Rolfe apologised for the disruption during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, denying any cyber attack and affirming that safety was never compromised. He said, “Things do go wrong in complex systems.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has summoned NATS chairman Sir Warren
East for urgent talks aimed at addressing these repeated infrastructure failures and ensuring system resilience.
In September 2026, Ryanair transported 20.1 million passengers across more than 111,700 flights, marking a 4% increase from the previous year. Competitor Wizz Air reported carrying 7.78 million passengers during the same period, a 24% year-over-year rise, but announced plans to reduce its late-year capacity by 5% due to rising jet fuel costs and tensions in the Middle East.
