Transport Secretary does not believe air traffic control issue was ‘unavoidable’
The Transport Secretary has told MPs she did not believe the air traffic control problems that have caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of passengers were “unavoidable”.
Travellers were caught up in the disruption after hundreds of flights were cancelled following the Nats technical issue on Tuesday.
Cancellations and delays continued on Wednesday as airlines dealt with knock-on impacts at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.
Addressing the Commons on Wednesday afternoon, Heidi Alexander said: “A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions, and delays.
“I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption.
“We often take for granted the way in which our aviation system just works, but yesterday that was not the case.
“Safety must remain air traffic controllers’ overriding priority, and this morning I have spoken to Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe, who informed me this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site.
“So, while my understanding from Nats is that we can rule out a cyber attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable.
“We also spoke this morning about how Nats responded to resolve and minimise the disruption as quickly as possible, and I am grateful to the airports and airlines who responded straight away.”
Ms Alexander said she had asked the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.
Nats has also said a full investigation will be conducted into the issue.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said as of Wednesday at 3pm, more than 300 flights had been cancelled or not taken off that day and more than 2,000 flights over the last two days had been affected.
British Airways said the fault had forced it to cancel almost 550 of its flights, which had impacted more than 85,000 passengers.
The airline said it was “incredibly sorry” to its customers and that the issue had been “entirely out of our control”.
A tearful bride-to-be en route to her wedding in Italy was among the thousands of passengers stranded following the fault.
Weary holidaymakers at Heathrow slept with their luggage on the floor of Terminal 5 as others jostled for spare seats and spent hours waiting for airline staff to pick up the phone.
Grandfather Kevin Turner travelled from his home in Thailand to the UK to attend his daughter’s wedding in Ischia.
About an hour before he and his daughter arrived at Heathrow early on Wednesday morning, they were told their Naples-bound flight had been cancelled.
The 77-year-old told the Press Association: “I’ve come all the way from Thailand just for this wedding and I can’t walk properly because I had a bad operation a couple of years ago – so this will probably be the last time I’ll be able to make this trip, it’s like a golden opportunity and I feel a little bit let down.”
They now hope to travel to Gatwick, fly to Milan, catch another flight to Naples early on Thursday and then a boat to Ischia.
The wedding is on Sunday, but events start on Friday with a welcome to their friends, who have already arrived.
Sat opposite them in a busy cafe, holidaymakers Geoff and Janina McBride warned people about a scam that NatWest fortunately rescued them from.
The McBrides, from Hampshire, were trying to travel to Lisbon and then on to the Azores to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary – but their flight was cancelled.
Former government nanotechnology scientist Mr McBride, 63, told PA they called a phone number on what they thought was the official BA website.
A fraudster pretending to work for the airline tried to offer them alternative flights from London City, Gatwick or Heathrow airports and via Munich.
The false flights were about £600 each, but the payments to him were not going through.
His wife, 64, called NatWest to ask why and they told her “get off the phone to them immediately”, Mr McBride said.
His card was blocked and the payments cancelled, he added, telling PA: “What do you do when you’re in a drama?
“I’m very well-versed in cybersecurity, but it’s that one click, isn’t it?
“And it looked legitimate, proper, he sounded proper, he was going through all the different flights, had all the details, so he can pull that off the internet and speak to me down the phone, credit card details – so I was lucky, very lucky.”
Mr McBride added: “We were in a panic – that’s when they get you.”
Nats has apologised for disruption to passengers and airlines, for which Mr Rolfe said he took “full responsibility”.
The chief executive has come under fire from Wizz Air following the fault, while Ryanair called on Mr Rolfe to resign.
BA said it has “long made the case for improved resilience in aviation” and issues raised by the system failure need “to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
A BA spokesperson said: “We’ve heard reassurances before, but then we’re faced with issues like this yet again.
“Our customers and colleagues are tired of dealing with these issues, time after time. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Downing Street said the Government still had confidence in Mr Rolfe.
Published: by Radio NewsHub