Passengers who saw their flights cancelled or delayed after a technical issue wreaked havoc at Britain’s airports are ‘unlikely’ to be untitled to compensation, the British Civil Aviation Authority warned.
More than 300,000 holidaymakers were said to have been affected yesterday after an issue with the National Air Traffic Services’ ‘flight processing system’ saw scores of flights disrupted.
The issue sent the country’s major airports – including Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham – into turmoil as passengers were left stranded in terminals and on runways.
British Airways alone revealed it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights in a decision which affected ‘tens of thousands of customers’.
But passengers have now been warned that it is unlikely they will be awarded compensation for disruption caused by the technical failure due to ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.
The British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said this evening: ‘Although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.’
The CAA confirmed that it has launched an investigation to understand what exactly caused the fault after NATS chief Martin Rolfe admitted last night that the service did ‘not yet have an idea’.
Mr Rolfe faced calls to resign from a host of airlines following the ordeal and met with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander this morning.
Alexander made clear she did not believe the shambles was ‘unavoidable’, though Mr Rolfe will not be ousted immediately while he retains the confidence of Downing Street.
He was, however, branded an ‘overpaid failure’ yesterday after a similar issue caused chaos at British airports only last year.
Effectively pleading for his survival in a broadcast interview this morning, Mr Rolfe confirmed that a cyber attack was not responsible for the carnage.
He promised there would be a ‘very, very thorough investigation’ into the issue – but also argued that such incidents were ‘inevitable’.
Tens of thousands of passengers were caught up in the travel mayhem after a system issue hit NATS, which provides air traffic control services to 15 UK airports.
The misery was continuing for passengers at Heathrow this morning
Some unfortunate travellers were trying to get some sleep at Heathrow this morning
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe has promised a ‘very, very thorough and full investigation’
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander ordered NATS chief Martin Rolfe to report back in detail on the ‘completely unacceptable’ situation at a meeting this morning
Cancelled flights are listed on a check-in display board at Heathrow Terminal Three yesterday
Chaos continued today with more cancellations and delays as airlines deal with the knock-on impacts at hubs including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said as of 3pm, more than 300 flights had been cancelled or not taken off today, with more than 2,000 affected over the past two days.
British Airways said the fault had forced it to cancel almost 550 of its flights, which had impacted more than 85,000 passengers.
The airline said it was ‘incredibly sorry’ to its customers and that the issue had been ‘entirely out of our control’.
Mr Rolfe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We will be doing a very, very thorough and full investigation. We have at this point ruled out cyber, we don’t believe it was a cyber attack.
‘My focus and that of the team has been on both getting our system operating back up normally, which it is now, but there’s obviously a huge tail to the disruption and we’ll be working on that through the course of today.
‘And then our attention will turn to exactly what’s happened in this particular incident. What I will say is I don’t believe we’ve ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we’ve never seen in 50 years of operation.’
Mr Rolfe also apologised for the disruption, adding: ‘Inevitably, things do go wrong in complex systems. We never want them to. We always hope they won’t, but we absolutely plan for them to and make sure we handle them properly.
‘I would say the UK has one of the best reputations in the world for its air traffic control service, both from a safety perspective and from a resilience perspective.
‘NATS was actually a partial privatisation 25 years ago, and since that point, it’s had access to funding. We’ve invested way more than a billion in technology over that time, our service has consistently improved. Our safety is consistently improved from a very good base.
‘But all of those things don’t detract from the fact that when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologise.’
Discussing the response to yesterday’s incident, Mr Rolfe said: ‘We had everybody on site, everybody was in the right place. We had all the engineers in place. We had our various partners from software industries and so on all on hand.
‘So this was resolved as quickly as it could be, but within the limits of making sure that it all stayed safe.’
Ms Alexander told MPs this afternoon that she did not believe the air traffic control problems that have caused chaos for passengers were ‘unavoidable’.
She said in the Commons: ‘A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions and delays. I would like to apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for this disruption.
‘We often take for granted the way in which our aviation system just works, but yesterday that was not the case. Safety must remain air traffic controllers’ overriding priority and this morning I have spoken to NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe, who informed me this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site.
‘So, while my understanding from NATS is that we can rule out a cyber attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable.
‘We also spoke this morning about how NATS responded to resolve and minimise the disruption as quickly as possible, and I am grateful to the airports and airlines who responded straight away.
‘But I am clear that passengers should not have to face this disruption. I have therefore asked the CAA to conduct an independent review to establish cause and ensure that our air traffic control systems can get passengers to where they need to be and this … review will report to me within six months.’
The managing director of Wizz Air UK, Yvonne Moynihan, said it should be a case of ‘three strikes and you’re out’.
‘I’m very surprised at that and it would seem like an easy pass for him after a number of own goals,’ she told Times Radio.
‘There have been three distinct and three separate incidents over three summers, particularly in August, September time, which is very busy period for airlines.
‘So the question is not whether failures can happen. The question is whether enough has been done since the previous incidents to prevent another nationwide disruption.
‘We’ve used the phrase three strikes and you’re out. It seems from the airlines’ and the industry’s point of view that three failures is unacceptable and passengers and airlines want to understand why would there be confidence in a public system that continues to fail.’
Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said Mr Rolfe should go.
‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,’ he told Times Radio.
‘We had the same flight planning processing issue in 2023… yet here we are less than three years later…’
He added: ‘We understand the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, is going to meet with Martin Rolfe today, and we think she should ask him to resign.’
Mr McMahon said the airlines had invested ‘hugely in resilience’, in contrast to NATS.
The problem is that they have a crap system and they don’t invest in it,’ he said.
‘And instead of investing in the system, they pay big bonuses to management and they pay huge dividends to the shareholders.’
Earlier, Mr Rolfe said that he ‘always accept(s) full responsibility’ when asked if he was considering his position after the incident.
Mr Rolfe is set for a showdown with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander amid calls for his resignation
Passengers wait at Heathrow Airport yesterday amid major disruption due to the NATS issue
He told Sky News: ‘I am the CEO of a piece of critical infrastructure, so it is my job to take responsibility for that.
‘What I absolutely take responsibility for is keeping people safe and delivering the best service we possibly can on a day like today.
‘You will understand my focus is entirely about how we actually resolve this issue, get things back to normal, help our airlines, our airport customers and the travelling public.’
This morning, Heathrow advised travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
‘Following yesterday’s NATS technical issue, flights are operating today, but some disruption may continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crew,’ it said in a statement on social media.
‘Please check your flight status with your airline before travelling to the airport and only travel if your flight is confirmed to be operating.
‘We apologise to those affected and have extra colleagues across our terminals to support passengers while we work with NATS and airline partners to restore normal operations as quickly as possible.’
Gatwick also said flights had resumed but disruption was likely to continue.
Its statement said: ‘We still anticipate that it will take time for our operations to fully return to normal. Passengers should continue to check with their airlines for more information regarding their flights.’
Luton Airport confirmed early this morning that the airport was ‘open and operational’, but said: ‘Some flights may still be subject to disruption and passengers are advised to check their flight status directly before travelling to the airport.’
Travel journalist Simon Calder said the knock-on effects today were ‘going to be horrible’.
He told Sky News: ‘There are going to be dozens of cancellations in the morning of flights coming into Heathrow because, basically, the flights didn’t go out tonight.’
Ryanair said more than 65,000 of its passengers had been disrupted and it had cancelled more than 50 scheduled flights.
British Airways (BA) said it was forced to cancel or divert more than 100 flights on Tuesday which had affected ‘tens of thousands of customers’.
Mr Rolfe has been under fire from Wizz Air and Ryanair after the latest issue which saw some passengers trapped on planes on runways for hours.
Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, called on Mr Rolfe to resign, saying: ‘How many more failures do passengers have to suffer before overpaid failure NATS CEO Martin Rolfe accepts responsibility for his repeated mismanagement and resigns?
‘Over three years after NATS’ catastrophic 2023 system meltdown, it’s clear that nothing has changed, with UK passengers once again suffering avoidable ATC (air traffic control) delays of up to eight hours today due a critical NATS ATC system failing’.
Last night, NATS said on X: ‘Work is continuing to assist airlines and airports recover from today’s disruption.
‘This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover.
‘We apologise again for the disruption caused. Passengers should check with their airline on the status of their flight tonight or tomorrow.’
Ms Alexander is set to speak with Mr Rolfe today before she addresses MPs in the Commons for the second reading of the Civil Aviation Bill.
Among the thousands facing disruption yesterday was Josie Donoghue, who had to get off her flight to Ireland after spending three hours on the runway at Gatwick.
Ms Donoghue said: ‘Getting through that airport was like trying to get out of Alcatraz. We were trapped in there. We were told we couldn’t get out until the flights were cancelled, and then eventually they allowed us to get out.
‘It’s just an absolute nightmare down there, it’s the only word I can use to describe it.’
Have you been affected? Email lettice.bromovsky@dailymail.co.uk
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