Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has summoned the chief executive of Britain's air traffic control provider NATS after a major technical failure caused widespread disruption across UK airports and led to more than 1,000 flight cancellations.
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe has been called to explain the failure as flights resume across the country following Tuesday's outage.
The technical problem affected NATS' flight processing system and caused severe disruption at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Manchester.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers were affected as airlines cancelled flights, delayed departures and worked to reposition aircraft and crews.
Alexander demands answers from NATS
Alexander is seeking an explanation of what caused the failure and what action NATS is taking to prevent a repeat.
The meeting comes amid growing scrutiny of the resilience of Britain's air traffic control infrastructure following a series of major technical problems in recent years.
NATS has apologised for the disruption and said the latest incident was not caused by a cyberattack.
The company has also said the failure was unrelated to previous system outages.
More than 1,000 flights cancelled
More than 1,000 flights were cancelled as a result of the disruption, with further delays continuing into Wednesday as airlines attempted to restore normal schedules.
Airports warned passengers to check with their airlines before travelling because aircraft and flight crews had been displaced across the network.
Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted were among the airports advising travellers that knock-on disruption could continue even after the underlying technical fault had been resolved.
Airlines intensify criticism
The incident has prompted fierce criticism from several major airlines.
Ryanair renewed its call for Martin Rolfe to resign, while Wizz Air called for a major overhaul of NATS and said the organisation was not fit for purpose in its current form.
Ryanair said around 150,000 of its passengers were affected and that it cancelled more than 200 flights.
British Airways said around 100 of its flights were affected by the disruption.
CAA demands full incident report
The Civil Aviation Authority has asked NATS for a full report into the failure.
The regulator said it would consider whether further action was needed to ensure the reliability and resilience of the UK's air traffic control system.
The latest outage follows previous major technical failures, including the August 2023 disruption that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Renewed questions over critical infrastructure
The scale of the disruption is likely to intensify political scrutiny of the resilience of Britain's critical transport infrastructure.
With the Transport Secretary now directly summoning the NATS chief executive, the focus has shifted from immediate travel disruption to accountability for the failure and whether sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent another nationwide aviation breakdown.