UK aviation authority to investigate after glitch cancels 300 flights
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Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Willie Walsh reveals that the consequences as a result of the glitch approximately amount to 100 million pounds sterling ($126.5 million).
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A passenger arrives from a flight at Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport in London, August 2, 2021. (AP)
An independent review has been launched by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Wednesday into the technical glitch that caused the UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) to cancel 300 flights at the UK's busiest airport.
"The UK Civil Aviation Authority is to launch an independent review into the technical issue NATS faced on Monday 28 August that saw hundreds of flights delayed and canceled," the organization said in a statement, adding that it will "review the wider issues around the system failure and how NATS responded to the incident."
On August 28, a technical issue with the flight planning system was reported by the NATS which impacted its ability to automatically process flight schedules - leaving it to download data manually and introduce air traffic restrictions.
According to NATS, the glitch was resolved the same day, but delays and cancellations rolled over into the next day.
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Two days later on August 30, the Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Willie Walsh, stated that the consequences as a result of the glitch approximately amount to 100 million pounds sterling ($126.5 million).
This comes after the disruption of over 60 flights at London Heathrow Airport was the largest disruption to happen in a decade last week. The NATS experienced an outage on the final Monday in August, a public holiday in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which sees a high volume of travelers returning after the summer holidays.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told British broadcasters that he understood many would be "enormously frustrated". According to Cirium, 790 flights and 785 arrivals were canceled at all UK airports on Monday.
Earlier this year, UK airlines were reported by The Financial Times to have started to regularly delay or cancel flights as a result of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, due to air traffic control issues.
