Meltdown at air traffic control due to staff WFH
THE August Bank Holiday air traffic control meltdown last year was made worse by the fact that key technical staff were working from home, a report has found.
Around 700,000 people had their flights cancelled, delayed or disrupted, causing misery and costs estimated at £100 million during the chaos last summer.
Now, an independent report commissioned by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has highlighted serious problems with working practices and failures to prepare for the impact of a major systems collapse.
It also found recommendations produced by investigations into previous air traffic control problems have not been implemented.
The review found that on public holidays ‘it is common practice for staff to be available on standby at remote locations – typically at home’. However, it said: ‘Major operations, such as the full system restart required in this incident, cannot be performed remotely.’
In this case, the home-working computer engineer took an hour and a half to get into the office, which delayed rebooting the computers.
The report also found higher-tier engineers are not required to be ‘on call’ on public holidays.
Instead, they operate a system of voluntary working which ‘is likely to be less effective at times when an incident would have a higher impact, such as busy holiday periods’.
The report concluded that ‘it is clear there is a significant lack of pre-planning and coordination for major events and incidents.’
The revelations triggered demands for Martin Rolfe, the boss of NATS, which runs the ATC system designed to keep the skies safe, to be sacked.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said: ‘The report confirms that NATS engineers were sitting at home on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year for air travel.
‘It’s time for Martin Rolfe to go, and if he won’t quit, then the Transport Secretary should remove him.’
NATS refused to say if staff working arrangements have been changed to prevent a repeat of the crisis.
A spokesman said: ‘ We have not waited for the report to make improvements for handling future events. These include a review of our engagement with our airline customers, our wider crisis response and our engineering support processes.’
A spokesman for the PM said: ‘It was a completely unacceptable situation for passengers to face the scale of disruption that they did.
‘We welcome this interim report. The Government will work with the industry and airlines to ensure this doesn’t happen again.’
‘Significant lack of pre-planning’