UK air traffic control says problem which caused flight cancellations won’t happen again

The disruption to flights into and out of Britain caused by a technical failure on Monday will not happen again after changes were made to the system, the head of the country’s air traffic control group NATS said.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard since we restored the service back on Monday to make sure that this type of event can’t happen again,” NATS CEO Martin Rolfe told the BBC on Wednesday.

The British government was working with airlines all day on Tuesday and early on Wednesday to help ensure passengers stranded in airports across Europe can get home.

More than 1,500 flights were cancelled on Monday – a public holiday in parts of Britain, and one of the busiest travel days as the school holidays draw to close – when air traffic controllers were forced to switch to manual systems due to a technical problem.

That left thousands of passengers stuck at airports in Europe and further afield.

Martin Rolfe, CEO of Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS), apologised for the technical failure on Tuesday, and said initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data it received.

Mark Harper, the transport secretary, warned it would take days to resolve the issues, even though the fault was fixed after a few hours on Monday. The cancellations hit airline schedules, meaning planes and crews were out of place.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he understood people were frustrated.

(REUTERS)