Phone glitch causes UK airport chaos
Disruption hits some of the UK’s biggest airports after a glitch in air traffic control systems forces operators to delay and even cancel some flights.
Queues formed and planes were grounded for much of Saturday after an air traffic control problem prevented the system from operating to its full capacity.
However, after a day of chaos, engineers finally managed to fix the problem at 7.30pm. But the travel misery is not over just yet – the knock-on effect of the disruption could last for days.
A spokesman for the national air traffic operators, Nats, said: “The problem that arose this morning with the ground communications system in the area control operations room at Nats Swanwick has now been resolved and operations are returning to normal.
To be clear, this is a very complex and sophisticated system with more than a million lines of software. This is not simply internal telephones. Air traffic control spokesman
“The technical and operational contingency measures we have had in place all day have enabled us to deliver more than 80 per cent of our normal operation.
“The reduction in capacity has had a disproportionate effect on southern England because it is extremely complex and busy airspace and we sincerely regret inconvenience to our airline customers and their passengers.”
The problem was linked to the telephone system used at the national air traffic control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire. Somehow, the phone derailed the normal procedure of switching over from night-time operations to the busier day-time schedules. It’s a problem that has never been encountered before, Nats said.
“To be clear, this is a very complex and sophisticated system with more than a million lines of software. This is not simply internal telephones, it is the system that controllers use to speak to other ATC agencies both in the UK and Europe and is the biggest system of its kind in Europe,” the spokesman added.
“This has been a major challenge for our engineering team and for the manufacturer, who has worked closely with us to ensure this complex problem was resolved as quickly as possible while maintaining a safe service.”
At Heathrow there were 180 cancellations, split equally between arrivals and departures, and delays of under an hour.
Delays and cancellations
Five flights were cancelled at Gatwick, and there were delays at Stansted. The ripple effect has hit smaller airports like Edinburgh, Manchester and Bristol, where flights are suffering delays of up to three and a half hours.
A Stansted airport spokesman said flights had been subject to delays of between 30 minutes and three hours but added that the situation was improving throughout the day as aircraft flow restrictions were being lifted.
A spokeswoman for Gatwick airport said: “We have had 86 delays so far, with the average delay being an hour. In addition, we have cancelled five flights.
“It is not a busy weekend for us and we are not running at capacity. No passenger likes to be delayed, and we do not like to delay passengers, but because we are not at capacity, we have had the space to deal with disruptions. We have got passengers on the planes and we are getting them away. We are doing our best to deal with the situation.”
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Control tower failure at Heathrow as left me stranded for 2-3 hours at dusseldorf.
Anyone know any games besides eye spy?
— Howard Donald (@HowardDonald) December 7, 2013
The entire air traffic control system has gone down at #Heathrow. No one knows when we will even board our flight. Wicked.
— Justin Kramer (@JustinLindberg) December 7, 2013