Martin Rolfe has led the National Air Traffic Services since 2015 and has overseen three major incidents - airline bosses have called for the CEO to quit or be sacked11:57, 09 Sep 2026Updated 11:58, 09 Sep 2026The chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has faced the heat after more than 1,500 flights were cancelled following a technical meltdown.‌Martin Rolfe has led the air traffic controller since 2015, and faced three huge systems failures, that have led to thousands of flights being cancelled and misery for passengers, in that time. Several airline bosses have condemned the NATS chief and called for Rolfe to resign over Tuesday's air travel chaos.‌Rolfe apologised for the disruption and said a full investigation would be launched, but the boss has been summoned by the Transport Secretary to explain what has happened.‌On Tuesday, 1,300 flights to and from UK airports, according to flight monitoring website Flightradar24. Another 246 flights had been cancelled at Heathrow Airport by 6am on Wednesday, while Gatwick passengers faced 33 cancellations.Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary issued a scathing call for Rolfe to be sacked, saying: "Transport Minister Heidi Alexander, who owns 49% of NATS, must today demand that failing Martin Rolfe must quit, or be dismissed. Airlines and passengers serving the UK keep picking up the tab for Martin Rolfe's repeated failures.‌"It is time for this expensive, failing CEO to go, and allow UK NATS to be led by somebody competent and capable of delivering a resilient system and a backup system that actually works."Wizz Air also slammed NATS, claiming the controller was "not fit for purpose". The airline said: "A critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly bring the aviation system to a standstill. Nats is simply not fit for purpose in its current form."‌This morning, Rolfe apologised for the issue but dodged questions over whether he would resign. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme said: "Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems. We never want them to. We always hope they won’t, but we absolutely plan for them to and make sure we handle them properly." Despite this, Rolfe has led NATS during two other air travel meltdowns.Who is Martin Rolfe?Rolfe, 54, joined NATS in 2012 and has led the controller since 2015. He was previously a senior manager at Lockheed Martin, the American defence and aerospace manufacturer.The CEO takes home around £1.4m from his job, through a £553,000 base salary and £865,000 in shares, bonuses and pension contributions, according to The Times. Last year, NATS awarded the boss a 4.5% pay increase, despite overseeing the firm during the 2023 and 2025 disruptions.‌Speaking to BBC Radio 4 this morning, Rolfe defended NATS, which was part-privatised in 2001. He said: "NATS was actually a partial privatisation 25 years ago, and since that point, it's had access to funding."We've invested way more than a billion in technology over that time, our service has consistently improved. Our safety is consistently improved from a very good base. But all of those things don’t detract from the fact that when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologise."‌2023 air traffic control outageFlights were grounded in August 2023 in a huge air control failure, which left some holidaymakers unable to return home for days. A computer shutdown over the bank holiday weekend led to chaos for 700,000 passengers. The outage cost airlines £100million.The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) later carried out an investigation and the disruption started after NATS suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan. The response from NATS was significantly delayed after it took an engineer, working from home, three hours to get to the control centre.This incident was raised again following yesterday's fallout. Neal McMahon, Ryanair's chief operating officer, speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, said: "NATS told us it was a flight planning processing failure, which is exactly the same issue that happened in 2023. If you remember in 2023 there was an issue with a flight plan, and it sent the system in a loop that eventually caused it to shut down."Article continues below2025 NATS outageIn July 2025, a 20-minute air traffic control fault, at the NATS control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, led to 150 flights being cancelled.Nats at the time said the problem was caused by a "radar-related issue" and was "resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system". The air traffic controller said the issue was different to what caused the huge 2023 outage.