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| Air traffic boss apologises to MPs | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| The head of National Air Traffic Services (Nats), the UK’s air traffic control service, has tried to reassure MPs there would be no repeat of last week’s flight meltdown that disrupted travel plans of 10,000 passengers in the runup to Christmas. | |
| Richard Deakin, chief executive of Nats, apologised for a computer glitch that caused disruption to airline passengers last Friday. | |
| Deakin, who was paid £1.05m last year including a £272,000 bonus despite a previous air traffic control failure in December 2013, said he was not proud of the disruption, but said it was unrealistic to expect the system to be foolproof. | |
| “I think for those passengers it was unacceptable and from our point of view, yes, we’re not proud of what happened on Friday night but I think we are proud of how we responded to it,” he told the Commons transport committee. | |
| As many as 120 flights were cancelled and a further 500 were delayed by an average of 45 minutes during the computer glitch at Nats’ headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire. Nats had to severely limit the number of flights permitted in and around London. | As many as 120 flights were cancelled and a further 500 were delayed by an average of 45 minutes during the computer glitch at Nats’ headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire. Nats had to severely limit the number of flights permitted in and around London. |
| Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, had described the problem as unacceptable. | |
| Deakin said the problem that caused the delays would not occur again and ruled out any further delays in the runup to Christmas. But he refused to rule out any future disruptions as other elements of the complex air traffic control system could encounter problems. | |
| “Any complex system will have failures in it. I think it’s unrealistic to expect that a system such as Nats never has any reduction in capacity due to those failures,” he said. | “Any complex system will have failures in it. I think it’s unrealistic to expect that a system such as Nats never has any reduction in capacity due to those failures,” he said. |
| Labour MP Tom Harris, a former transport minister, said Deakin appeared “incredibly complacent” about the issue. “Your evidence so far has kind of given the impression that everything’s fine,” he said. “You seem to be suggesting that what happened on Friday was a bit of a nuisance but you’re ticking the box, you’re taking a couple of hours out of your day to appear before us but after that it’s fine.” | Labour MP Tom Harris, a former transport minister, said Deakin appeared “incredibly complacent” about the issue. “Your evidence so far has kind of given the impression that everything’s fine,” he said. “You seem to be suggesting that what happened on Friday was a bit of a nuisance but you’re ticking the box, you’re taking a couple of hours out of your day to appear before us but after that it’s fine.” |
| Deakin denied the accusation, saying a “huge amount of time” had been spent making sure systems were performing to the best of their ability. | Deakin denied the accusation, saying a “huge amount of time” had been spent making sure systems were performing to the best of their ability. |
| He refuted suggestion that Nats systems were ancient or antiquated. “Just because technology is ‘old’ it does not necessarily mean that it is not fit for purpose,” he said. | |
| An independent inquiry will be held in to the disruption. | An independent inquiry will be held in to the disruption. |