EasyJet lays on rescue flights as ‘dodgy French flight plan’ blamed for traffic chaos

The air traffic control failure was caused by flight data received by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), with both primary and back-up systems responding by suspending automatic processing, chief executive Martin Rolfe said.

Hundreds of flights to and from UK airports were cancelled again on Tuesday as airlines struggled to recover from the hours-long failure of the National Air Traffic Services system on bank holiday Monday, blamed on a technical fault.

Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, will operate five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days.

The rescue flights will operate from Palma and Faro on 30 August, Tenerife and Enfidha on 31 August and Rhodes on 1 September.

“Following the UK ATC systems issue on Monday, easyJet is now operating normally,” easyJet said.

“We have been providing customers with assistance and hotel accommodation and advising anyone who has needed to make their own hotel or alternative travel arrangements that they will be reimbursed.

“During this traditionally very busy week for travel, options for returning to the UK are more limited on some routes and so easyJet will be operating five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days from Palma and Faro on August 30, and Tenerife and Enfidha on Thursday August 31 and from Rhodes on Friday September 1.

“We are also operating larger aircraft on key routes including Faro, Ibiza, Dalaman and Tenerife to provide some additional 700 seats this week.

“Although this situation was outside of our control, we are sorry for the difficulty this has caused for our customers and remain focused on doing all possible to assist and repatriate them. Customers will be moved onto repatriation flights and notified directly.”

Around 300,000 airline passengers have now been hit by flight cancellations since the hours-long failure of the Nats system on bank holiday Monday. The knock-on effect is set to last for several more days, as under-pressure airlines battle the backlog in a week where millions are already returning to the UK from their summer holidays.

Several sources say the issue may have been caused when a French airline filed a dodgy flight plan that made no digital sense. Instead of the error being rejected, it prompted a shutdown of the entire Nats system – raising questions over how one clerical error could cause such mayhem.

In a statement, the CEO indicated the organisation’s complex IT system defaulted to fail-safe mode when presented with anomalous data.

Mr Rolfe said: “Our systems, both primary and the back-ups, responded by suspending automatic processing to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information could be presented to an air traffic controller or impact the rest of the air traffic system.”

Surely the Nats system should automatically have identified an anomaly and spat out the plan, saying “try again”? Yet instead, the flight plan was ingested and set in train a shutdown of the entire system.

The closest analogy I can come up with is an extremely well-tuned machine – let’s say an aircraft engine – being prone to spanners being thrown into the works.

The air traffic control failure which led to a spate of flight cancellations was caused by flight data received by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), with both primary and back-up systems responding by suspending automatic processing, chief executive Martin Rolfe said.

There are no indications that the failure was caused by a cyber-attack, he added in a statement released on Tuesday.

Mr Rolfe also wanted to “reassure” people that all Nats systems have been running normally since Monday afternoon to support airline and airport operations.

He said: “Very occasionally technical issues occur that are complex and take longer to resolve.

“In the event of such an issue our systems are designed to isolate the problem and prioritise continued safe air traffic control. This is what happened yesterday.

“At no point was UK airspace closed but the number of flights was significantly reduced.

“Initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data we received.

“Our systems, both primary and the back-ups, responded by suspending automatic processing to ensure that no incorrect safety-related information could be presented to an air traffic controller or impact the rest of the air traffic system.

“There are no indications that this was a cyber-attack. We have well established procedures, overseen by the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), to investigate incidents.

“We are already working closely with them to provide a preliminary report to the Secretary of State for Transport on Monday.

“The conclusions of this report will be made public.”

The rescue flights will operate from Palma and Faro on 30 August, Tenerife and Enfidha on 31 August and Rhodes on 1 September.

More than 1,200 flights to, from and within the UK were grounded by the failure at the national air traffic provider Nats, with around 200,000 people sleeping at airports overnight.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has slammed air traffic control (ATC) provider Nats for the “unacceptable” disruption caused over the past two days.

In a video message, the chief executive described Monday as “a very difficult day” with 250 flights cancelled, while a further 70 were axed on Tuesday.

Speaking from the airline’s operations centre at Dublin Airport, Mr O’Leary said: “We’ve had a very difficult day yesterday due to the UK Nats ATC failure.

“I’m sad to report that we had to cancel about 250 flights affecting the flights of about 40,000 passengers because of long delays to flight plans, crews running out of hours.

“Last night we had 20 aircraft that couldn’t get back to their home bases so they’re out of place for today.

“Today, unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to cancel about another 70 flights.”

Flight cancellations are continuing as airlines struggle to recover from the four-hour failure of the main air-traffic control system across the UK on bank holiday Monday.

Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, grounded more than 80 flights on Tuesday, while British Airways also grounded more than 60 flights.

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It’s the £80m question: why are airlines facing enormous financial losses while their passengers endure extreme distress?

The last week of August is a time of high demand for air travel, especially from returning holidaymakers. Because of the UK’s limited airport infrastructure, especially in southeast England, there is precious little slack in the system: Heathrow and Gatwick are, respectively, the busiest two-runway and single-runway airports in the world.

So the UK’s normally well-regarded air traffic control (ATC) system needed to be working perfectly on bank holiday Monday.

At 11.24am on Monday I began to get reports from airlines of an “ATC failure affecting entire UK airspace”. Within 15 minutes I asked Nats, the national air traffic service, what was happening.

Despite the issue being fixed on Monday, the major disruption to tightly-packed bank holiday schedules continues to cause chaos in UK flight schedules – with many passengers now facing the prospect of being stuck overseas for more than a week.

Andy Gregory has the full story: