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| Air chaos: '10,000' hit by Nats glitch at Heathrow | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Up to 10,000 passengers at Heathrow alone were affected by an air traffic control computer failure, the transport secretary has confirmed. | Up to 10,000 passengers at Heathrow alone were affected by an air traffic control computer failure, the transport secretary has confirmed. |
| Patrick McLoughlin said Friday's failure was "unacceptable" but defended the National Air Traffic Services. | |
| He told MPs he welcomed an inquiry by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) into the chaos, saying he hoped the findings would be available by March 2015. | |
| Nats has blamed a computer glitch for disruption to flights across the UK. | |
| Answering questions from the House of Commons Transport Committee, Mr McLoughlin defended the overall performance of Nats, saying it was doing "an incredibly good job". | |
| "The average delay this year in Nats is 2.5 seconds per flight, whereas the rest of Europe we're taking about 30 seconds," he said. | "The average delay this year in Nats is 2.5 seconds per flight, whereas the rest of Europe we're taking about 30 seconds," he said. |
| He also compared the disruption to a telephone failure at the Swanwick centre in December 2013, which also caused flight disruption. | |
| That incident caused 126,000 minutes of delays, compared to Friday's 16,000 minutes, Mr McLoughlin said. | |
| Earlier, Prime Minister David Cameron said the failure - which has been blamed on a single line of compute code in one flight system - would be examined "very, very carefully". | |
| The CAA is to appoint an independent chair to lead the inquiry, which will take evidence from experts on information technology and air traffic control. | |
| However, the transport committee's chairman Louise Ellman questioned Mr McLoughlin about the inquiry - which could involve CAA and Nats staff - saying it "did not look very independent". | |
| The inquiry would be dealing with a very specialised and technical area, Mr McLoughlin said. He said there was a limited number of people who could carry it out. | |
| "We want to find out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again," he added, | |
| Criticism rejected | |
| Investment by Nats has been questioned since Friday's failure, which grounded many flights at Heathrow and Gatwick with knock-on effects at other UK airports. | Investment by Nats has been questioned since Friday's failure, which grounded many flights at Heathrow and Gatwick with knock-on effects at other UK airports. |
| Heathrow also cancelled about 40 flights on Saturday morning before normal services resumed. | |
| The company's chief executive, Richard Deakin, rejected criticism from Business Secretary Vince Cable, who accused the company of "skimping on large-scale investment" and being "penny wise and pound foolish". | |
| The company says it will be spending £575m over the next five years on systems. | The company says it will be spending £575m over the next five years on systems. |
| Mr Deakin has also faced calls from Labour MP Paul Flynn to have his bonus docked because of the disruption. | Mr Deakin has also faced calls from Labour MP Paul Flynn to have his bonus docked because of the disruption. |
| Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said he expected his pay to be affected by the incident but stressed that Nats' performance over the year had been good. | |
| "We have the funding that we need to deliver the service that we require," he added. |