Air Traffic Control Disruption

Debate between Keir Mather and Mike Kane

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Keir Mather]

I would like to point out that more often than not, our air traffic control systems and the individuals who work in them provide a safe and effective service for UK air passengers. In a typical year, NATS handles over 2.5 million flights, and around 300 million passengers travel over the UK and across the north Atlantic. We are responsible for a large proportion of European air traffic, and NATS does a good job to ensure that UK passengers get to places safely.

However, incidents like this, and the fact that they have occurred three times within four years, bring home the fact that when disruption occurs, it is incredibly difficult for passengers and for our airlines and airports to adapt to. The hon. Member is absolutely right to say that lessons must be learned. There are technical lessons that must be learned, and that is what we will get to the bottom of through the report from NATS and then the six-month report from the CAA. He is right to raise broader questions. If we are to facilitate what this Government want to achieve, which is an ambitious programme of expansion in our airport capacity, particularly in the south-east of England, we will do so with passenger safety at its heart, and effective oversight of NATS must run to the core of that.

[Mike Kane]

I thank the Minister for his answers, and I am sure he will join me in thanking the management and staff of Manchester airport, who have worked overtime to minimise the disruption to passengers over the last couple of days.

The Minister will be as aware as I am that we are in danger of playing regulatory whack-a-mole here. Less than three years on from the last disruption and the 34 recommendations that followed, we have to ask questions about why those recommendations did not cover the technical issue we face today, and maybe then we will begin to see that we need wider reform of both the CAA, which I am pleased to say is under new management since 2023, and NATS. Are we making progress in vertical take-off and landing and in drone technology at pace? We have seen progress this year in the upper echelons of Scottish airspace, but Manchester airspace and northern airspace are stuck in neutral. These organisations need to show the vision that will allow our aviation sector to remain world-class.

[Keir Mather]

I thank my hon. Friend and predecessor in this role for all his work in holding the CAA and NATS to account and managing some of the difficult conversations following previous disruptions. He raises the valid point that those recommendations were passed on by the CAA and have been implemented in full, and yet we have seen this disruption. Part of this is about us working with the CAA to encourage NATS to go further, faster on some of the technological innovations and transformations he describes. He is right to say that, despite the negativity of the situation, this is a useful opportunity to ask ourselves questions about where we can encourage NATS to go further and push the boundaries in terms of regulatory innovation in the areas he spoke about, such as eVTOL—electric vertical take-off and landing—and drones, and to learn the lessons from this incident and think about how we can build a greater depth of resilience across our UK aviation sector.