NATS Holdings

• Several thousand passengers were stranded at airports, hotels and connection depots following the recent system-wide glitch of the UK air traffic control systems.
• So what was the glitch and how did it create so much chaos?
• The problems appear to have been caused by unusual data in a flight plan submitted into the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) system by a French airline.
• But, in my experience as a researcher of management, managers further up the chain can often pay more attention to immediate threats.
• They may therefore underestimate the impact of accumulated errors, or may not have enough time to monitor them.

Bigger picture

• “This system should be designed to reject data that’s incorrect, not to collapse,” Walsh explained.
• Lundgren said a review of the situation should determine whether NATs is “really fit for purpose, not only on the systems but on the technology, on the staffing levels”.
• Another point to bear in mind: many senior managers – particularly at chief executive and managing director level – are not necessarily technicians.
• Unfortunately, as long as the glitch is not salient and the machine still works, people usually ignore it.

Next steps

• But managers and authorities should also offer replacement flights, coupons or other objects of comparable value as compensation.
• Managers have been improving communication between technicians and non-technicians and should be praised for this change in attitudes.
• The risk for the industry is that passengers affected by the problems may look to alternative forms of transport in the future.