Air traffic failure was avoidable, says Transport Secretary
Summary
A technical failure in the UK’s air traffic control system caused over 2,000 flight cancellations and major travel disruption. The Transport Secretary said the problem could have been avoided and ordered both an independent investigation and a review of the system’s resilience.Key Facts
- The UK air traffic control system run by Nats failed for about four hours on Tuesday.
- More than 2,000 flights were cancelled due to the outage.
- The failure happened at Nats’ Swanwick Centre, which manages flight plans and updates for controllers.
- The Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, ruled out a cyberattack but said the failure was avoidable.
- Nats has had three major technical faults in three years causing disruption.
- The Civil Aviation Authority will conduct an independent review and report back in six months.
- Airlines UK criticized the system, saying airlines pay the costs of failures while responsible organizations face limited consequences.
- Nats is partly government-owned (49%) and partly owned by UK airlines and Heathrow Airport.
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