Air traffic control failure caused by ‘flight data received by National Air Traffic Services’
The air traffic control failure was caused by flight data received by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), with both primary and back-up systems responding by suspending automatic processing, chief executive Martin Rolfe said.
Hundreds of flights to and from UK airports were cancelled again on Tuesday as airlines struggled to recover from the hours-long failure of the National Air Traffic Services system on bank holiday Monday, blamed on a technical fault.
(AFP via Getty Images)
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 19:48
easyJet lays on rescue flights
Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, will operate five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days.
The rescue flights will operate from Palma and Faro on 30 August, Tenerife and Enfidha on 31 August and Rhodes on 1 September.
“Following the UK ATC systems issue on Monday, easyJet is now operating normally,” easyJet said.
“We have been providing customers with assistance and hotel accommodation and advising anyone who has needed to make their own hotel or alternative travel arrangements that they will be reimbursed.
“During this traditionally very busy week for travel, options for returning to the UK are more limited on some routes and so easyJet will be operating five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days from Palma and Faro on August 30, and Tenerife and Enfidha on Thursday August 31 and from Rhodes on Friday September 1.
“We are also operating larger aircraft on key routes including Faro, Ibiza, Dalaman and Tenerife to provide some additional 700 seats this week.
“Although this situation was outside of our control, we are sorry for the difficulty this has caused for our customers and remain focused on doing all possible to assist and repatriate them. Customers will be moved onto repatriation flights and notified directly.”
(Getty Images)
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 19:12
Pregnant woman in Greece for anniversary among thousands left stranded abroad for days
Around 200,000 people saw their flights cancelled on Monday after a technical fault with National Air Traffic Services systems led to 1,500 planes being grounded and many thousands more delayed.
Despite the issue being fixed on Monday, the major disruption to tightly-packed bank holiday schedules continues to cause chaos in UK flight schedules – with many passengers now facing the prospect of being stuck overseas for more than a week.
Andy Gregory has the full story:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 20:59
More: EasyJet to send ‘rescue flights’ for passengers stranded by air traffic control chaos
The rescue flights will operate from Palma and Faro on 30 August, Tenerife and Enfidha on 31 August and Rhodes on 1 September.
More than 1,200 flights to, from and within the UK were grounded by the failure at the national air traffic provider Nats, with around 200,000 people sleeping at airports overnight.
Read more:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 20:33
NATS statement appears to confirm reports that a ‘dodgy flight plan’ was responsible: Simon Calder analyses
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has confirmed that the air traffic control failure was caused by flight data received by the company, with both primary and backup systems responding by suspending automatic processing.
“I would like to apologise again for our technical failure yesterday. While we resolved the problem quickly, I am very conscious that the knock-on effects at such a busy time of year are still being felt by many people travelling in and out of the UK”, a statement from NATS CEO Martin Rolfe read.
A dodgy flight plan filed by a French airline may have sparked the major systems meltdown, sources told The Independent earlier on Tuesday.
NATS’ statement appears to confirm reports that a “dodgy flight plan” was responsible, travel correspondent Simon Calder believes. Mr Rolfe says: “Initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data we received.”
The NATS chief executive seems to suggest that the organisation’s complex IT system, defaulted to fail-safe mode: “Our systems, both primary and the back-ups, responded by suspending automatic processing to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information could be presented to an air traffic controller or impact the rest of the air traffic system.”
NATS will now face questions about why its system cannot simply reject flight plans that contain anomalies, rather than shutting down.
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 20:02
What will the ‘temporary alleviations to allow night flights’ policy look like in practice?
With aviation chaos this week, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he was going to put in place “temporary alleviations to allow night flights” at some airports. What does this mean in practice? Simon Calder explains.
The one major UK airport with significant night flight restrictions is London Heathrow. No departures are scheduled between 10.50pm and 6am, nor arrivals between 10.55pm and 4.40am. Note those are scheduled times, and arrivals can vary; Heathrow also has a voluntary ban in place that prevents flights from landing before 4.30am. Some arrivals from South Africa and Australia are held on the ground before departure so they don’t arrive too early.
At an airport with 1,300 movements a day, though, things can go awry. Airlines have some discretion to operate out of the “permitted” hours up to certain limits; sometimes even with only mild disruption, departures may stray beyond 11pm, and I have been on a delayed Dublin-Heathrow flight on British Airways that touched down at 1pm.
The whole point, of course, is to limit the noise that residents in west London and east Berkshire endure. Ministers balance that aim against a need to get thousands of people to where they need to be. Temporary alleviations, as many people living close to Heathrow will testify, are far from unusual.
What is unusual is that the government mentioned it. With the extreme disruption that the air-traffic control meltdown caused, allowing extended use of Europe’s busiest airport will help airlines (particularly BA) to get back on track. On Monday night there were a number of arrivals well after midnight, and the same is likely to happen on Tuesday.
The issue shows the overstretch in airport infrastructure in London – and may intensify the debate over a third runway at Heathrow, to build in a little more resilience (and significantly increase the number of flights).
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 19:30
Simon Calder: What is causing the air traffic control chaos? The authorities have some explaining to do
It’s the £80m question: Why are airlines facing enormous financial losses while their passengers endure extreme distress?
The last week of August is a time of high demand for air travel, especially from returning holidaymakers. Because of the UK’s limited airport infrastructure, especially in southeast England, there is precious little slack in the system: Heathrow and Gatwick are, respectively, the busiest two-runway and single-runway airports in the world.
So the UK’s normally well-regarded air traffic control (ATC) system needed to be working perfectly on bank holiday Monday.
Read more:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 19:10
Everything you need to know about air traffic control failure on Tuesday as more flights cancelled
Aircraft and flight crew are out of position after the severe disruption on bank holiday Monday.
More than 1,200 flights to, from and within the UK were grounded by the failure at Nats, the national air-traffic provider. Around 200,000 people are starting the day where they did not wish to be – with many sleeping overnight at airports.
Simon Calder reports:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 18:50
Ask Me Anything: Put your questions to Simon Calder as flight cancellations cause mayhem across Europe
Flight cancellations are continuing as airlines struggle to recover from the four-hour failure of the main air-traffic control system across the UK on bank holiday Monday.
Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, grounded more than 80 flights on Tuesday, while British Airways also grounded more than 60 flights.
Ask our travel expert for advice on your rights and what to do if your flight is cancelled:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 18:30
More travel chaos after 300,000 hit by cancellations – and French error blamed for air traffic mayhem
Around 300,000 airline passengers have now been hit by flight cancellations since the hours-long failure of the Nats system on bank holiday Monday. The knock-on effect is set to last for several more days, as under-pressure airlines battle the backlog in a week where millions are already returning to the UK from their summer holidays.
Several sources say the issue may have been caused when a French airline filed a dodgy flight plan that made no digital sense. Instead of the error being rejected, it prompted a shutdown of the entire Nats system – raising questions over how one clerical error could cause such mayhem.
Simon Calder and Andy Gregory report:
Eleanor Noyce29 August 2023 18:10
