Ryanair cancelled 50 flights. Britain's air traffic computers failed a third time.
Ministers rejected an amendment which would have made NATS reimburse airlines for the passenger compensation they pay when an air traffic failure cancels flights, The Register reported.
Lord Young of Cookham proposed it. The government opposed it and it was withdrawn.
The outage of 8 September disrupted around 330,000 passengers and cancelled 2,000 United Kingdom flights, The Register said. Ryanair said it cancelled over 50 scheduled flights and that over 65,000 of its passengers were disrupted. Computer outages have hit NATS three times in three years, the first in August 2023.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: "I do not believe this issue was unavoidable."
NATS said: "Our operations are stable and we continue to work closely with airlines and airports to support their recovery."
The government owns 49% of NATS and an airline consortium holds 42%. An independent Civil Aviation Authority review has six months to report.
Anyone who has negotiated a service credit knows this shape. What a customer is owed and what a supplier carries are two different numbers.
In your largest supplier contract, what does an outage of this size actually recover?
Sources
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which exit clauses your largest software and services contracts carry, and when each can be used.
- 2Ask what leaving would cost, in money and in months.
- 3Ask who reads the contract when a dispute starts, and whether they have read it before.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01