Arsenal's flight to Naples was delayed after a major air traffic control system failure, and the squad were still at the training ground before heading later to the airport. They were not expected to land until around 9:30pm local time, or 8:30pm UK time, on the eve of their Champions League opener against Napoli.
Arsenal's disrupted travel plan
The delay came on a day when Nats said the system issue had been resolved by 7:30pm after disruption to more than 400 flights. Flightradar24 said more than 1,000 flights had been cancelled at UK airports by about 8pm, while Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers were affected and more than 50 scheduled services were cancelled.
Arsenal were trying to get to a fixture that comes with a decent European record behind them. They finished top of the 2025 UEFA Champions League table with 8 wins from 8, 24 points and a 23-4 goals record, and they have won both of their last two meetings with Napoli in 2019.
The air traffic control fallout
Martin Rolfe, the Nats chief executive officer, said: "I am the CEO of a piece of critical infrastructure, so it is my job to take responsibility for that." He also said: "You will understand my focus is entirely about how we actually resolve this issue, get things back to normal, help our airlines, our airport customers and the travelling public."
Neal McMahon, Ryanair's chief operating officer, took the sharper line, asking: "How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure Nats CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?" He also pointed to "Nats' catastrophic 2023 system meltdown" and said UK passengers were again suffering avoidable delays of up to eight hours.
The immediate football story remains the same: Arsenal were delayed before their trip to Napoli, with a late departure from the training ground and a much later arrival than planned. Arsenal have won their last five matches across all competitions, so the football side of the build-up is strong enough already, but the travel disruption turned a routine pre-match journey into a messy one.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
