Ryanair cancelled over 1,000 flights in September 2026 following two UK air traffic control system failures occurring within a fortnight. The disruptions affected numerous routes across British airspace, grounding thousands of flights.
Airports Affected and Causes of Failures
Major UK airports impacted include Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, and the NATS Scottish control centre at Prestwick. On September 8 alone, a failure of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) grounded more than 1,300 flights at these hubs. NATS attributed this outage to a “spurious flight plan” that caused the system crash.
Later in the month, a connectivity problem at the Prestwick control centre triggered additional cancellations. Disruptions were
compounded by strikes among Belgian air traffic controllers and volcanic ash clouds from Mount Etna, further limiting airspace capacity.
Passenger Numbers and Carrier Capacity Changes
Despite the cancellations, Ryanair carried 20.1 million passengers across more than 111,700 flights in September 2026, marking a 4% increase from the previous year. Rival airline Wizz Air transported 7.78 million passengers during the same period, a 24% rise year-on-year. However, Wizz Air plans to cut capacity by 5% late in the year citing jet fuel prices and pressures from the Middle East conflict.
Official Responses and Industry Reactions
Ryanair’s Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon labeled NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe an “overpaid failure” and called
for his resignation after the September 8 system failure. McMahon highlighted a similar collapse in August 2023 caused by a French flight plan, which stranded roughly 700,000 passengers.
Martin Rolfe apologized publicly and assured that safety was never compromised. He dismissed any suggestion of a cyber attack, stating, “Things do go wrong in complex systems.” Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander summoned NATS chairman Sir Warren East to urgent talks to address the repeated air traffic control infrastructure failures and to seek reassurances on system resilience.
The UK government stressed the need to prevent further air traffic collapses that cause widespread disruption
and strand passengers across British airports.
