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.
The total cost of the technical failure to industry and air passengers is likely to have been between £75 million and £100 million, transport secretary Louise Haigh disclosed in a written statement to Parliament.
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.
Reaction to report
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.”
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.”
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary called on Haigh to take “immediate action” to fix Nats’ “hopeless” service, and reform UK air traffic control.
He pointed out that Gatwick’s air traffic control system went on to fail in December, delaying thousands of passengers. This was followed by repeated Nats staff shortages this summer causing more “avoidable disruptions” to airlines and passengers throughout the UK.
AirportsUK chief executive Karen Dee said: “As the report makes clear, this outage had the biggest impact on aviation operations since the 2010 Icelandic volcanic eruption.
“It is therefore a testament to how hard airports worked in the days that followed to return operations to normal as quickly as possible.
“Airports will continue to keep all of their procedures under review, as they do at all times to ensure they serve passengers well and provide them with the most positive travel experience.
“We’ll also continue to work with the whole aviation sector so that incidents such as this are minimised in future.”
Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive officer of The Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “It is clear there was inadequate advance preparation should an issue of this magnitude occur, and we hope to see the report’s 34 recommendations actioned imminently by the relevant authorities in order to prevent such major disruption again.
“We particularly support the fact that as part of the CAA’s report, airlines and airports will need 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.
“As the world becomes increasingly complex to navigate it’s incumbent on all of us operating across the travel eco system to ensure peoples’ travel arrangements are as stress-free as possible and that any disruption is kept to a minimum.”
Rocio Concha, Which? policy and advocacy director, welcomed proposals for “vital changes” set out in the independent review.
“The transport secretary has recognised the need for these reforms and must bring forward new legislation to enhance the Civil Aviation Authority’s powers, ensuring it can issue hefty fines to hold airlines to account when they break the law,” she said.
“While it is good to see proposals for mandatory membership of ADR [Alternative Dispute Resolution] schemes for all airlines, Which? urges the government to go one step further and introduce a single ombudsman for the sector, to ensure passengers are guaranteed an effective and accessible service.”