Important delays being suffered by passengers are the results of the latest downside to hit Nationwide Air Traffic Companies’ multimillion-pound pc methods.
The nation’s main supplier of air traffic management companies operates from two centres: Swanwick in Hampshire, which opened in 2002 and covers 200,000 sq. miles of air area over England and Wales; and Prestwick in South Ayrshire, masking northern England, Scotland and out into the north-east Atlantic.
Swanwick handles a mean of 5,500 flights every day, equating to two million a yr, carrying 200 million passengers.
Earlier issues have included:
– July 2019 – greater than 50 flights have been cancelled at London airports following an “issue with radar shows” at Swanwick.
– April 2018 – an overhaul of the Nats system at Swanwick led to delays of up to 20 minutes for flights certain for Heathrow and Gatwick for up to three weeks. This was exacerbated by a failure of the Europe-wide traffic management system – not operated by Nats – which precipitated 15,000 flights throughout the continent to be cancelled or delayed, affecting half 1,000,000 passengers.
– August 2017 – The Guardian reported that hundreds of passengers had been hit by flight delays due to excessive illness charges on the Nats centre in Swanwick.
– October 2015 – air passengers in Scotland confronted delays after Nats reported interference on radio frequencies used to communicate to plane.
– December 2014 – Nats pledged to compensate hundreds of passengers after a technical fault led to 10,000 folks going through delays at Heathrow with a complete of 16,000 minutes of delays at Heathrow and Gatwick.
– December 2013 – 126,000 minutes of delays have been precipitated as a whole bunch of flights have been cancelled after an issue with Nats’ inside phone system.
– July 2013 – a pc failure at Swanwick, which concerned a “rogue” flight plan being arrange, precipitated dozens of flights to be delayed.
– February 2011 – technical issues at Nats precipitated delays together with at Glasgow and Manchester.
– October 2009 – Transatlantic flights from Britain have been grounded for 3 hours after a system failure at Prestwick.
– September 2008 – almost 100 flights have been cancelled at Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton after a pc glitch at Swanwick.
– June 2004 – a system crash at Nats’ earlier base in West Drayton, close to Heathrow Airport, meant flights had to be manually guided in by air traffic controllers.
.jpg?quality=75&width=1200&auto=webp "Study reveals scale of flight delays and impact on travellers")
