Regulator calls for air traffic control reform after Gatwick and Heathrow meltdown
A report following the disastrous NATS air traffic control meltdown last year, has issued a series of recommendations, including possible legislation to prevent it reoccurring.
The Civil Aviation Authority released its long-awaited review of the events of 28 August last year, which saw untold chaos with hundreds of thousands of Bank Holiday getaways ruined.
Prepared by an Independent Review Panel, the report gives more than 30 recommendations for NATS (National Air Traffic Services) to prevent it from happening again.
Recommendations include considering changing the law to protect consumers and propping up contingency plans.
NATS’ failures have previously drawn the ire of airline and airport bosses, including Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary, who called for air traffic control boss Martin Rolfe to be sacked after a “long line of cock ups.” Ryanair launched legal action against NATS earlier this year.
The boss of Easyjet has previously complained that necessary reform for the aviation industry is being “shackled by needless bureaucracy”.
The Civil Aviation Authority said it estimated that over 700,000 passengers were impacted by the disaster, including 300,000 people by cancellations, 95,000 by delays of over three hours, and a further 300,000 by shorter delays.
Thousands of passengers had their flights cancelled at major UK hubs Heathrow and Gatwick Airport in part due to reported staff shortages at the National Air Traffic Service (NATs), and a major technical failing while creating a flight plan.
The CAA told markets this morning it published the report, with key recommendations including that NATS will “review its contingency and engineering resource management arrangements as well as providing earlier notification to airlines and airports of possible disruption.”
It also said both airlines and airports will have to “review the adequacy of the support available to passengers during significant disruption”.
The CAA will also “review the incentive framework applied to NATS and establish a forum for the aviation sector to rehearse major incident management.”
It also hinted the government may “consider legislative change to bring Civil Aviation Authority’s consumer enforcement powers in line with other sectors and to make ADR (alternative dispute revolution) membership mandatory for all airlines operating in the UK.”
‘We must ensure passengers are better looked after’
Jeff Halliwell, a veteran chief executive in the retail sector and chair of the Independent Review Panel, said: “The incident on 28 August 2023 represented a major failure on the part of the air traffic control system, which caused considerable distress to over 700,000 aviation passengers, and resulted 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.”
Rob Bishton, chief executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, added: “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.”
The CAA also said this morning that NATS has “already indicated that it has acted to address a number of findings arising from its own internal investigation after the incident.”
Transport Secretary Louise 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.”
Major airlines have been asked for comment.