A recent hours-long outage in the UK's air traffic control system, leading to approximately 2,000 flight cancellations and millions of pounds in losses for airlines, has prompted strong commentary from economist and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian government, Professor KV Subramanian.
Subramanian declared that the incident is evidence of the 'unraveling of the West.' His remarks were made in response to a social media post by Milind Deora, who recounted his own challenging experience following the outage. Deora's flight to London was diverted to Amsterdam, where he faced an 18-hour delay at Schiphol Airport, compounded by a Dutch transport strike that halted train services.
India's Infrastructure Compared
Deora's ordeal led him to reflect on aviation services, stating, "We often complain about India, but our aviation infra & customer service are often better than the West." Subramanian echoed this sentiment, expanding on his long-held view:
"I’ve long maintained (since the Global Financial Crisis to be precise) that the unraveling of the West has started. Mark my words: Future generations will ask why their great grandparents didn’t have the wisdom to see where the West was headed & chose to leave India to move there."
While some social media users agreed with the praise for India's airports, others offered counterpoints, noting that perceived superiority might be class-dependent or that strikes in countries like the Netherlands often stem from demands for better pay, even for workers who are already well-compensated compared to their Indian counterparts.
NATS Failure and Government Response
The system failure occurred at Britain's NATS air traffic control provider, causing widespread disruption across major UK airports. This marks the second significant NATS failure in three years, with a previous shutdown in August 2023 costing airlines an estimated £100 million and a radar issue affecting airports in July 2025.
Transport Minister Heidi Alexander summoned NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to explain the incident. Alexander later informed parliament that she did not believe the outage was due to a cyberattack, but stressed that the issue "was not unavoidable." She announced that NATS has one week to investigate and report its findings, and a separate independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is expected within six months. Prime Minister Andy Burnham's spokesperson confirmed confidence in Rolfe but reiterated the demand for a swift report.
Ryanair Group CEO Michael O'Leary criticized the latest failure as "an absolute rerun" of the 2023 incident, which was attributed to a rogue flight plan, and renewed his call for Rolfe's resignation.