The UK’s aviation regulator has published a final report into the air traffic control failure caused by a computer failure at air navigation service provider NATS during summer last year.
More than 700,000 passengers were impacted by the failure which happened during a peak travel period on August 28, 2023. This includes 300,000 people who had their flights cancelled, 95,000 whose flights were delayed by over three hours, and a further 300,000 who were affected by shorter delays.
The problems occurred due to an anomaly that forced NATS to stop processing flight plans. According to the report the “plan included two waypoints along its route that were geographically distinct but which have the same designator”.
The system was closed to maintain safety and required manual operation to continue service.
The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) commissioned an independent review into the incident chaired by Jeff Halliwell in October 2023.
The final report found that the problem cost a total of £100 million and sets out 34 recommendations for NATS, airlines and airports, the Civil Aviation Authority, and the UK Government.
The recommendations include for NATS to review its contingency and engineering resource management arrangements as well as providing earlier notification to airlines and airports of possible disruption.
The report also calls on airlines and airports to review the adequacy of the support available to passengers during significant disruption, in particular to vulnerable passengers and those travelling with children, and to develop a standardised suite of passenger information during major incidents.
It also recommends for a further review into the incentive framework applied to NATS for performance and to establish a forum for the aviation sector to rehearse major incident management.
Jeff Halliwell, 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, CEO of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority said: “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. It is vital that we learn the lessons from any major incident such as this. I would personally like to thank the Panel for all of their efforts in producing a thorough and wide-ranging report, that will help improve the UK’s aviation system for the future.”
The final report can be read here.