Airlines should review their support for passengers hit by disruption as part of an official report into last August’s bank holiday air traffic control IT meltdown.
More than 700,000 travellers were affected, including 300,000 people by cancellations, 95,000 by delays of more than three hours, and a further 300,000 by shorter delays on August 28, 2023.
The final report of an independent review into the National Air Traffic Service (Nats) flight planning system failure was published today (Thursday) by the Civil Aviation Authority.
The final report sets out 34 recommendations for Nats, airlines and airports, the CAA, as well as the government.
They include:
· Nats to review its contingency and engineering resource management arrangements as well as providing earlier notification to airlines and airports of possible disruption.
· Airlines and airports to review the adequacy of the support available to passengers during significant disruption, in particular to vulnerable passengers and those travelling with children, and to develop a standardised suite of passenger information during major incidents.
· The CAA to review the incentive framework applied to Nats and establish a forum for the aviation sector to rehearse major incident management.
· The government to consider legislative change to bring CAA’s consumer enforcement powers in line with other sectors and to make Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) membership mandatory for all airlines operating in the UK.
Nats has already indicated that it has acted to address a number of findings arising from its own internal investigation after the incident.
The aviation regulator pledged to publish periodic updates on the progress with implementing the recommendations by all parties.
Independent review panel chair Jeff Halliwell said that the incident on August 28, 2023 represented a “major failure” on the part of the air traffic control system, which caused “considerable distress” to over 700,000 passengers, resulting in substantial costs to airlines and airports.
“Our report sets out a number of recommendations aimed at improving Nats’ operations and, even more importantly, ways in which the aviation sector as a whole should work together more closely to ensure that, if something like this does ever happen again, passengers are better looked after,” he added.
CAA chief executive Rob Bishton said: “This final report gets to the heart of what went wrong in August 2023 and sets out a number of recommendations that are sector-wide in their scope.
“It is vital that we learn the lessons from any major incident such as this. I would personally like to thank the panel for all of their efforts in producing a thorough and wide-ranging report, that will help improve the UK’s aviation system for the future.”
Transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “The Nats IT failure last year was an unprecedented event that we all hope never happens again, so I welcome the final report and its recommendations to strengthen the sector and restore passenger confidence.
“I’ve said before that I will be the passenger-in-chief and my priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly – that’s why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible.”