Airlines have reacted furiously after a technical glitch in air traffic control systems led to more than 150 flight cancellations.

The National Air Traffic Service (NATS) has apologised for the IT problems – and said systems were back up and running 20 minutes after the “radar-related issue” was detected at 4.05pm.

But with thousands of passengers suffering extensive travel disruption, during one of the busiest times of the year, airline executives have warned this isn’t good enough.

Ryanair’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon has called for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign – and claimed Wednesday’s incident was “utterly unacceptable”.

He said: “It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe’s continued mismanagement of NATS.

“It is clear that no lessons have been learnt since the August 2023 NATS system outage, and passengers continue to suffer as a result of Martin Rolfe’s incompetence.”

Mr McMahon was referring to a glitch that affected more than 700,000 passengers two years ago – and said that, if Mr Rolfe refuses to step down, the government should intervene.

“Heidi Alexander must act without delay to remove Martin Rolfe and deliver urgent reform of NATS’ shambolic ATC service, so that airlines and passengers are no longer forced to endure these preventable delays caused by persistent NATS failures,” he added.

The Department for Transport says Ms Alexander does not have any direct control over NATS – and no powers over staffing decisions at the service.

EasyJet’s chief operating officer David Morgan added: “It’s extremely disappointing to see an ATC failure once again causing disruption to our customers at this busy and important time of year for travel.

“While our priority today is supporting our customers, we will want to understand from NATS what steps they are taking to ensure issues don’t continue.”

NATS is yet to comment on the calls for Mr Rolfe’s resignation – but has stressed that the glitch is not believed to be “cyber related”.

“This was a radar-related issue which was resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system during which time we reduced traffic to ensure safety,” a spokesperson had said.

Departures at airports across the country have now resumed – but passengers are being urged to check with their airline before heading to terminals.

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John Carr, from Stourbridge, was on his way from Heathrow to Norway to help arrange his brother’s wedding when he discovered his flight was cancelled after checking in.

“I’m pretty gutted,” he said. “We’ve got loads of stuff in the suitcases to set up the venue, because we’re obviously flying to Norway. We’ve got the wedding rehearsal to do. It’s quite stressful.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for an urgent investigation and also referred to the “utterly unacceptable” disruption two years earlier.

“With thousands of families preparing to go on a well-earned break, this just isn’t good enough. The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.”

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Flights departing or arriving at a UK airport, or aircraft operated by a UK airline arriving in the EU, are subject to rules concerning delays or cancellations.

Airlines may have to provide compensation, although there are exemptions for “extraordinary circumstances”, according to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority.

The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died from complications of measles has urged parents to have their children vaccinated amid a surge of cases.

Renae Archer was too young to have the MMR vaccine when she caught the infection at just five months old.

A decade later, she was diagnosed with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a very rare brain disease. She died in 2023.

Her mother Becky believes Renae might not have caught measles if more people had inoculated their children.

The warning comes as rates of vaccine uptake continue to fall. The recent death of a child with measles at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool put the focus on a surge of cases in a city with low levels of vaccination.

It has left communities with rates of vaccination below the 95% level seen to provide herd immunity, where enough people are protected to prevent the virus spreading.

Becky Archer said: “It does make me quite sad and angry because they are potentially putting their children at risk.

“We just want people to open their eyes to someone that’s actually been through it and not the nonsense that’s being spread out on social media or on telly.

“I just want people to be knowledgeable of how serious a situation can be.”

The latest figures on childhood vaccination show that coverage in the UK has been falling in recent years and is now below that target of 95% for all vaccines by age five.

The vaccination rate for England is lower than in other UK nations, and particularly low in London.

Just 60% in Hackney have had their full measles vaccination course by their fifth birthday, compared to 89.2% on average across Scotland – though the rate in Scotland has also fallen from 93% a decade earlier.

Outside of London, the North West now has among the lowest vaccination rates for most of the main childhood vaccines.

Liverpool has the lowest measles vaccination rate outside of London, with more than a quarter of children not completing a full MMR vaccination course by their fifth birthday, according to the latest NHS figures for 2023/24.

Seventeen cases of measles have been recorded at Alder Hey in recent weeks, and doctors are reassuring parents that the vaccine is safe, free and available.

The hospital’s chief nurse Nathan Askew said: “Measles is often thought of as just a routine childhood illness but actually it’s incredibly contagious.

“The problem is that when that’s passed on, particularly in schools, nurseries and other environments where children are close together, there’s a real problem with children becoming unwell.”

Low immunisation rates have been blamed on vaccine hesitancy among parents, but experts say a lack of information on the importance and availability of vaccines is also a significant factor.

At a catch-up clinic in Liverpool, parents including Natalia Figeuroa have been bringing their children in. She admits she lost track of her son’s vaccinations, but worries that parents are being confused.

“I think parents are trying to make the right decision but the misinformation that’s out there is overclouding their judgement,” she said.

“My child attends a specialist provision which is a school that carries many children with disabilities, physically and mentally, and it’s really hard to see that those kids could be exposed to an illness that is quite preventable with a vaccine.

“I’m hoping parents will start to think not only about their own children but those other children who cannot get vaccinations for numerous reasons.”

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Becky Archer was due to give birth the day she was told that Renae’s condition was fatal.

She died a few days later, and her mother believes she would want her story told.

“She was really caring person and she wouldn’t have wanted any other family to go through losing their child,” she said.

The mother of a five-year-old boy who died after being sent home from hospital because of a “lack of beds” has told Sky News that the second report into his death “has not brought closure for the family”. 

Yusuf Nazir died in November 2022. His mother Soniya had rushed her son to Rotherham Hospital’s A&E, only to be told “there were no beds available”.

Yusuf was eventually seen by a doctor but then sent home. Soniya says the doctor told her that “Yusuf had the worst case of tonsillitis he had ever seen”.

But the child’s health continued to deteriorate, and his desperately worried mother called an ambulance to rush him to the nearby specialist children’s hospital in Sheffield.

It was here, the report says, that a number of critical interventions were missed. Yusuf’s family say that, if doctors had acted sooner, he would still be alive.

Speaking in her first interview since Yusuf’s death, Soniya described the panic she felt as a mother watching her son “dying in front of her eyes”.

“I carried Yusuf to the nurse, floppy with his eyes rolled back, struggling to breathe, myself to the nurse,” Soniya said.

“She said: ‘We’re too busy, we can’t get a doctor, you’ll have to wait.'”

Other patients in the waiting room intervened when they saw Yusuf gasping for air and struggling to breathe, but they were told Yusuf’s mother should approach the nurses herself if she was concerned.

This second independent report was backed by Wes Streeting when he was shadow health secretary.

A previous internal NHS report found no wrongdoing on the part of Rotherham Hospital. The family have described that report as a “whitewash”.

Their claim will be supported by this second report, which says: “It’s clear that across all settings – primary care, pre-hospital, emergency and inpatient – the healthcare system failed to truly hear the family’s voice.”

It also says staff should have listened to the “mother’s instinct”.

“I knew he was very, very poorly, he was struggling to breath, he was lethargic, he was floppy,” Soniya told Sky News.

“I knew that something’s not right before they even escalated it to the ICU. I knew he was very poorly but no one else picked it up.”

The health secretary told Sky News: “There are no excuses for the tragic failings in the lead up to Yusuf’s death, and I know first-hand how hard it has been for his family to live without the answers they deserve.

“This independent report reveals their concerns were repeatedly not addressed across NHS services.

“It is now the responsibility of the NHS to implement the recommendations in this report so that the family can at least take small comfort in knowing that because of Yusuf – and thanks to Yusuf – children will be safer and better cared for in the future, but I know that really is of no consolation for a loving family living with the unimaginable pain of losing a lovely little boy in these awful circumstances.”

Part of the report’s key findings shows Yusuf had 23 separate healthcare contacts across four NHS organisations that were responsible for his care, but there was no coordinated record or oversight.

It found the clinical assessments that were made were inconsistent and led to difficulties in comparing his condition over time. Routine care prior to his crisis was marked by a wait-and-see approach that failed to pre-empt worsening conditions.

It also recorded clinical staff at Sheffield used an outdated cannula method that failed to give Yusuf potentially life-saving drugs.

Soniya says she pointed out the leaking cannula to Yusuf’s nurses, but her concerns were brushed aside.

“The cannula burst and the whole bed was full of his medication and blood on the morning he went to the ICU, the whole weekend he’d not had that medication,” she said.

“He’d have been in pain and he wouldn’t have been getting any better if he wasn’t having the medication. And I think that’s the reason Yusuf’s not here anymore.

“From the moment he was in Sheffield Children’s Hospital until the end I think he didn’t get any treatment, it was just like him being at home.”

Soniya says she welcomes the report’s findings that show Yusuf did not get the care he needed – but the investigation does not find a cause of death or apportion blame.

The investigation has made national recommendations, including consultant-led oversight on weekends and giving parents visibility of their child’s medical records.

Sky News has closely followed the family’s fight for answers since first reporting on Yusuf’s case, two days after he died.

Dr Jeff Perring, executive medical director at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We recognise the profound loss felt by Yusuf’s family and those who loved him.

“We will be reviewing the recommendations of the report and taking those forward through education, guidance, policy and training to deliver the best care for our children, young people and families.”

“We want change,” Soniya says. “We want this not to happen to any other child. Because if they don’t change, there’s going to be another child and another mother sat here telling you the same story.”

Dr Jo Beahan, medical director at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our deepest sympathies remain with Yusuf’s family following such a sad loss of a loved family member.

“Since November 2022, we have taken steps to address the concern relating to Yusuf’s care which includes listening to the concerns of parents and carers. Our thoughts continue to be with Yusuf’s family.”

Professor Aidan Fowler, national director of patient safety in England, said: “Our sympathies remain with Yusuf’s family, and we acknowledge the heavy toll this investigation has placed on them – while grieving an unimaginable loss.

“Following publication of the final report today, we will respond on the findings and how we will be taking forward the recommendations in the report to ensure there are continuing improvements in patient safety and care for children across NHS hospitals and services in the future.”

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The Nazir family’s fight is not over. This report cannot confirm Yusuf’s cause of death, or say if his life could have been saved with better care.

It is why Soniya is demanding a coroner’s inquest into her son’s death: so that she and her family can finally have closure.