Proactive Investors - Ryanair (LON:0RYA) boss Michael O’Leary has slammed National Air Traffic Services (NATS) after its report was published into an issue which caused last week’s travel chaos.
Dubbing the report “bogus,” O’Leary echoed calls from across the industry for NATS to take responsibility for the fault, which saw thousands of flights cancelled and around 300,000 people affected.
“You don’t need a remit to do the right thing,” he said in a video posted on X.
“NATS should be providing reimbursement of those costs to their airline customers that we’re providing to our customers.”
RYANAIR REJECTS NATS “WHITEWASH” REPORT pic.twitter.com/oqLRCFmZLW— Ryanair (@Ryanair) September 6, 2023
Questions still remain over the issue that caused Britain’s air traffic control system to shut down, easyJet (LON:EZJ) PLC boss Johan Lundgren said meanwhile.
His warning comes in spite of the NATS report, which detailed that the system went into shutdown after receiving data it could not process.
“Many questions are still left unanswered," Lundgren commented, “an incident on this scale should not have happened and must not happen again".
Industry body also Airlines UK called for airlines to receive compensation over the error, after carriers were said to have faced a near-£100 million hit from the chaos.
Airlines are obligated to accommodate or reroute passengers struck by flight cancellations, even if the cause of the issue is out of their hands.
“Airlines cannot be the insurer of a last resort,” Airlines UK chief executive Tim Alderslade commented.
NATS should be held accountable, he argued, adding: “We can't have a situation whereby airlines carry the can every time we see disruption of this magnitude.”
Regulator the Civil Aviation Authority is poised to independently review of NATS’ response to the event, suggesting action could be taken if any licenses were breached.