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London Air Traffic Glitch Closes Airspace and Disrupts Flights London Air Traffic Glitch Closes Airspace and Disrupts Flights
(about 14 hours later)
LONDON — London’s airspace was sharply restricted for hours on Friday afternoon at the beginning of a busy pre-Christmas weekend because of a computer failure at one of Britain’s two air-traffic control centers, British authorities said. LONDON — A technical malfunction at a chronically troubled air traffic control center in Britain disrupted European flights for hours on Friday as the authorities were forced to severely restrict London’s normally busy airspace, delaying or rerouting dozens of flights.
The agency known as NATS, in charge of air traffic control, said “a technical problem” had affected the control center in Swanwick, England, at about 3 p.m. and that airspace would be restricted while the problem was resolved. Reverberations from the glitch extended from Heathrow and Gatwick airports east into continental Europe as well as Scotland, Ireland and some trans-Atlantic flights to the United States. The effects were compounded by heavy pre-Christmas travel.
While officials at London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest, said that the NATS center in Swanwick had suffered a power cutoff, others described the problem as a glitch in the computer software that sequences flights for takeoff and landing. The scene was chaotic at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, with lines of exasperated passengers at the British Airways terminal demanding information.
There was no official indication of how long traffic would be disrupted, with officials saying that they hoped to restore the service by 7 p.m. local time. Express trains from London to Heathrow were suspended. “It’s been absolutely appalling,” said Agnes Konalska, 35, who was trying to fly to Madrid. “There are just two information desks offering assistance. I’ve been running around for three hours trying to find out what’s been going on.”
At about 4:30 p.m., NATS announced that the computer problem had been fixed and that it was in the process of normalizing operations. “However, it will take time for operations across the U.K. to recover so passengers should contact their airline for the status of their flight,” the agency said, apologizing for “any delays.” Aviation officials blamed what they described as a technical problem at an air traffic control center in Swanwick, England, that has been hit with periodic maladies since it opened in 2002, six years behind schedule.
Heathrow Airport reported delays, and Gatwick Airport said that while flights were continuing to land, departing flights were halted for a time. David Whitely, a spokesman for Gatwick, said that Friday nights were normally not so busy there. The government agency responsible for air traffic control, called NATS, said the breakdown began at 3 p.m., forcing a restriction on flights. It took 90 minutes to fix but air traffic did not start returning to normal until the evening.
Flights farther out from London airports were expected to be diverted to other airports, like the Manchester Airport, which remained open. NATS apologized in a statement, saying “it will take time for operations across the U.K. to recover so passengers should contact their airline for the status of their flight.”
The Swanwick center also controls flights over the Stansted, Luton and London City airports, all of which were affected by delays. The precise nature of the problem was not disclosed. While NATS said it was not a power outage, some reports said it was a glitch in the computer software that sequences takeoffs and landings.
The NATS control center said that “every possible action is being taken to assist in resolving the situation and to confirm the details.” NATS is a public-private partnership company that provides air navigation services at Heathrow and a dozen other British airports. It could not have come at a worse time for Heathrow, which handles 72 million passengers a year. The airport said at least 50 flights were canceled. Delays also disrupted Gatwick, which handles 35 million passengers annually.
Last December, a computer problem at Swanwick took 12 hours to fix. The other NATS control center is in Scotland. One Heathrow staff member said he normally worked in finance but had been drafted to help assuage the crowds of anxious passengers. “A lot of people are very confused but we’ve been calming them down,” he said. “To be fair, it could be better, the airlines could be giving us more information.”
Marianna Panizza, a Heathrow Airport spokeswoman, said the incident was expected to ground close to 50 flights for every hour of airspace restriction. Express trains from London to Heathrow were suspended, but the London subway continued to operate to the airport.
Heathrow handles 72 million passengers a year, and Gatwick 35 million. Air France said that about 20 flights were affected and a Paris-to-Dublin flight was turned back. At least two Iberia flights were ordered to return to Madrid.
Most passengers at Heathrow were not initially aware of the problem. Vicky Lane, a passenger on a grounded flight from London Gatwick to Dublin, told the BBC, “We’ve been stuck on a Ryanair flight” for over an hour. “The doors are open and we’re really cold. I’m not sure when we will be leaving.” Airports in northern and central England, including Birmingham and Manchester, were unaffected.
At Heathrow, passengers on United Airlines Flight 941 to Newark were told about the computer problem as they boarded at 3:30 p.m. local time, The Associated Press said. United’s staff at the gate said the plane would be loaded and head to a runway in the hope that the computer problem would be fixed. The Swanwick center also controls flights over Stansted, Luton and London City airports, and all were affected by delays, as were Bristol and Leeds airports.
The Swanwick center has had numerous problems with software and reliability since it opened in 2002, six years late. The transport minister, Patrick McLoughlin, said that “disruption on this scale is simply unacceptable,” and he demanded “a full explanation” from NATS. Normally, air traffic control systems are designed with redundancy to cope with technical problems.
In 2004, a computer problem grounded scores of flights across Britain. An even more serious glitch in September 2008 grounded hundreds of flights and affected tens of thousands of travelers. The NATS control center said that “every possible action is being taken to assist in resolving the situation and to confirm the details.” NATS is a public-private partnership that provides air navigation services at Heathrow and a dozen other British airports.
Last December, a computer problem at Swanwick took 12 hours to fix. Another NATS control center is in Scotland.
Most passengers at Heathrow were not initially aware of the problem. Vicky Lane, a passenger on a grounded London-to-Dublin flight at Gatwick, told the BBC, “We’ve been stuck on a Ryanair flight” for over an hour. “The doors are open and we’re really cold. I’m not sure when we will be leaving.”
But the problems mounted. Philip Speirs, 71, trying to fly to Madrid on an around-the-world trip, was waiting in a long line to get information. “It’s been very civilized actually, but should be better managed,” he said. “This queue is spiraling and spiraling round, I think we’ll be here for a while. Just shows you how dependent they are on computers!”
Ross Jamieson, 27, trying to fly to Glasgow, said that he had been in line for an hour to try to book a hotel after his flight was canceled. “We arrived here at 2 p.m., and it’s now gone 6,” he said. “It’s been annoying and frustrating and now I just want to go to the pub.”
It was unclear whether the cause of Friday’s software glitch was related to any previous air traffic computer outages. Paul Beauchamp, a NATS spokesman, declined to provide further details, saying the agency was still investigating the incident. “The priority is getting everyone moving again,” Mr. Beauchamp said.
In 2004, a Swanwick computer problem grounded scores of flights across Britain. An even more serious glitch in September 2008 grounded hundreds of flights and affected tens of thousands of travelers.
The 2013 failure at Swanwick was particularly bad because it came at the beginning of the holiday season. After calm was restored, NATS chief Richard Deakin called that failure a “one-in-10-year event.”The 2013 failure at Swanwick was particularly bad because it came at the beginning of the holiday season. After calm was restored, NATS chief Richard Deakin called that failure a “one-in-10-year event.”