NATS crisis: Who is air traffic control boss earning £1.5m facing backlash after chaos?

The latest IT glitch to hit the UK air traffic control provider NATS has raised further searching questions over its systems and leadership.

The company, which used to be called National Air Traffic Services, is a crucial cog in the management of the skies and major airport operations.

Here, Sky News examines its function, ownership and leadership and asks whether regulators have failed to get to grips on performance after previous costly disruption in recent years.

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What is NATS?

Its roots date back to 1962 and it was crucially separated from its regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), 30 years later to remove potential conflicts of interest.

Today, NATS is a public-private partnership. The company is 49%-owned by the government with a group of airlines, including British Airways, holding 42% of the remaining equity.

A total of 5% is owned by NATS staff.

What is the company responsible for?

It is a myth that NATS controls all UK air space.

In fact, it only controls the skies 7,000ft above the ground but has air traffic management responsibilities at 15 airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester.

It operates two main airspace control rooms - at Swanwick in Hampshire and Prestwick in Ayrshire - and employs almost 5,000 staff in total, including 1,800 controllers and 1,000 engineers.

Why is it under pressure?

NATS has suffered three major outages in little over three years.

The first affected travel for more than 250,000 passengers around the August Bank Holiday in 2023.

A less serious incident, which still affected hundreds of flights in July 2025, was blamed on a radar-related failure.

The latest systems glitch, which has been fixed but which is still causing knock-on effects, is expected to result in disruption to services for several days.

Each incident not only delays passengers but costs airports and airlines especially as they are obliged to provide care and assistance - sometimes hotel rooms - to their customers for significant delays.

Following questions regarding its oversight, the CAA confirmed it penalised NATS' regulated provider, NERL, £1.7m for its overall delay performance in 2023.

What has been its defence?

NATS says its primary responsibility is to keep people safe and this is particularly true during any technical issue that poses a risk.

It characterises its operations as critical national infrastructure with "complex" systems that have required significant investment.

Why the chief executive is facing calls to quit.

Martin Rolfe has been in post since 2015.

He faced a backlash from the airline industry even after the first major technical failure in 2023, so is no stranger to industry and media criticism.

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After the bank holiday weekend debacle, newspapers were piling pressure on NATS in relation to his remuneration, which included a performance-related bonus.

Mr Rolfe, who received a pay package of £1.5m last year, is now facing widespread calls to resign.

Crucially, they are not coming from the bosses of the consortium of airlines which part-own NATS.

Mr Rolfe's ability to stay at the controls would be facing far greater turbulence if its ownership were to also turn on him. Much will depend on the views of the transport secretary.

But some airline bosses and industry figures haven't been shy in making their feelings clear.

They include Kenton Jervis, CEO of easyJet, who said: "Airlines have yet again been forced to cancel hundreds of flights, affecting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers, due to the third serious NATS technical issue in as many years.

"Despite assurances that lessons had been learned, customers are once again bearing the brunt of NATS' shortcomings. It simply isn't good enough."

The sentiment was echoed by Tim Alderslade, chief executive of trade body Airlines UK.

In a letter to the transport secretary, the aviation minister and the boss of the Civil Aviation Authority, he stated that "this kind of failure simply cannot happen again".

Mr Alderslade said there was a "recurring pattern of system failure" and NATS systems remained deficient despite assurances after the previous outages.

He urged authorities to urgently state how they will investigate the latest failure and whether recommendations after the 2023 debacle had been fully implemented.

Mr Alderslade said he wanted authorities to force NATS to publish "a clear resilience and contingency improvement plan with timelines, and review the current liability framework so airlines are not left to absorb millions of pounds of costs for failures outside their control".

(c) Sky News 2026: NATS crisis: Who is air traffic control boss earning £1.5m facing backlash after chaos?