Flights risk ‘diversion’ amid UK air traffic system failure, Simon Calder says
Britain’s largest budget airline will operate five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days as widespread air traffic control chaos continues across Europe.
EasyJet will operate the “rescue flights” from Palma and Faro on 30 August, Tenerife and Enfidha on 31 August and Rhodes on 1 September.
Hundreds of flights to and from UK airports were cancelled again on Tuesday as airlines struggled to recover from the hours-long failure of the National Air Traffic Services system on bank holiday Monday, blamed on a technical fault.
Sources told The Independent that a dodgy flight plan filed by a French airline may have sparked the major systems meltdown.
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe appeared to confirm that claim late on Tuesday, saying in a statement: “Initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data we received.”
He said the error caused both Nats’ primary and back-up systems to suspend automatic processing “to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information” could impact the air traffic system.
Have you been affected by delays? If so email andy.gregory@independent.co.uk
More travel chaos after 300,000 hit by cancellations – and French error blamed for air traffic mayhem
Around 300,000 airline passengers have now been hit by flight cancellations since the hours-long failure of the Nats system on bank holiday Monday. The knock-on effect is set to last for several more days, as under-pressure airlines battle the backlog in a week where millions are already returning to the UK from their summer holidays.
Several sources say the issue may have been caused when a French airline filed a dodgy flight plan that made no digital sense.
Our travel correspondent Simon Calder and Andy Gregory have more:
Namita Singh30 August 2023 05:30
‘No indication’ of cyber attack leading to air traffic control fault
Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe said in a statement yesterday that there are “no indications” the glitch was caused by a cyber-attack.
Explaining the air traffic control (ATC) fault, Mr Rolfe said: “Very occasionally technical issues occur that are complex and take longer to resolve.
“In the event of such an issue, our systems are designed to…
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