Vince Cable: air traffic firm skimped on investment

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/14/vince-cable-air-traffic-nats-skimped-investment

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The public-private company whose computer failures caused disruptions to flights in and out of the UK on Friday is reliant on ancient systems and has skimped on large-scale investment, the Lib Dem business secretary, Vince Cable, has said.

Cable gave his damning verdict on Nats, which is 49% owned by the government, after it suffered an unprecedented systems failure, causing dozens of flights to be grounded at airports across London and south-east England.

His comments are surprising since the government’s share in the company is overseen by the Shareholder Executive, which is part of Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Cable said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “They’ve been skimping on large-scale investment for very many years. They’ve got very ancient computer systems which then crash. The lesson for the future is that we do have to maintain a higher level of capital investment.”

Nats became a public-private partnership in 2001 under the last Labour government. It is 42% owned by Airlines Group, whose shareholders include the University Superannuation Scheme, British Airways, Monarch Airlines retirement benefit plan, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic, Deutsche Lufthansa, Thomson Airways and Thomas Cook Airlines.

Nats staff hold 5%, the UK airport operator LHR Airports has 4% and the government has 49% plus a golden share, which gives it extra voting rights in certain circumstances. Nats made profits of £82m on turnover of £450m last year, according to the Shareholder Executive.

On Saturday, Nats gave the first detailed explanation of the problem at its centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, that resulted in dozens of flights being cancelled or delayed. “In this instance a transition between the two states caused a failure in the system which has not been seen before,” Nats said. “The failure meant that the controllers were unable to access all of the data regarding individual flight plans, which significantly increases their workload.

“Our priority is to maintain a safe operation for the flying public; consequently when the failure occurred we immediately took steps to reduce the traffic into and out of the UK network. The controllers had a full radar picture and full communications with all aircraft at all times during the incident and at no time was safety compromised in any way.”

The transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, said on Friday: “Disruption on this scale is simply unacceptable and I have asked Nats for a full explanation of this evening’s incident.”

Louise Ellman, chair of the Commons transport select committee, said McLoughlin would be questioned about the incident on Monday.

“I am very concerned about this major breakdown in UK air traffic control and the impact of the disruption this failure has caused on airports, airlines and passengers,” she said.

“In such circumstances safety remains paramount, but going forward it is vital that we establish what happened yesterday, and what Nats must do in order to ensure the same problem does not recur in future.

“I also hope that the committee will call Nats and the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] to give evidence to us, so that we can get to the bottom of what led up to this weekend’s events.”