Willie Walsh Says UK ATC Meltdown Could Cost Airlines $126 Million

The Director of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Willie Walsh, recently told BBC Radio that the Air Traffic Control (ATC) meltdown on Monday could lead to up to 100 million Euros ($126 million) in costs for the airline industry. The statement comes after over 1,000 flights to and from airports in the UK were disrupted. Airlines across the country are scrambling to find a way to fix their operations that have fallen into disarray.

The costs of playing catch-up

With upwards of 1,500 hundred flights canceled across the UK on Monday, hundreds of thousands of passengers suddenly became displaced or had their travel plans take an unexpected twist. This has put the airlines in a challenging position as they must find ways to get the displaced passengers to their destinations while operating the rest of the previously scheduled flights throughout the week.

To make things even more challenging, the day of disruptions left aircraft and crews stranded around the world, so many could not operate the scheduled flights on Tuesday. This has created a domino effect of flight delays and cancelations. Several airlines, such as easyJet, have opted to send additional aircraft to select destinations where it has numerous stranded passengers. At the same time, others are working tirelessly to reroute stranded passengers while attempting to keep the current operations afloat.

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All of these problems come at the expense of the airlines. In addition to the costs of rerouting passengers, the airlines must deal with an astronomical amount of refunds and expenses due to passengers for extended delays. According to The Guardian, Walsh told BBC Radio the following concerning the costs the airlines must shoulder,

“We’re looking at costs in the tens of millions, probably at this stage – too early to estimate fully – but I would imagine at an industry level we’ll be getting close to £100m of additional costs that airlines have encountered as a result of this failure.

“It’s very unfair because the air traffic control system which was at the heart of this failure, doesn’t pay a single penny.”

A faulty flight plan

The air transit industry is an endless cycle of arrivals and departures that transports millions around the globe every day. To operate at or near peak efficiency, airlines have flights constantly coming and going in a manner that enables them to transport as many passengers as practical on any given day. This system is incredibly efficient and profitable, assuming everything goes according to plan and all flights are on time.

However, should anything go amiss and a flight be significantly delayed, it will start a domino effect that will delay later flights, which means that one considerable delay can quickly lead to several others. Should over 1,000 flights be delayed on the same day, chaos is sure to ensue.

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This week’s chaos reportedly came from a technical issue that forced the UK ATC network to go offline. With no ATC services, airline flights could not depart from major airports across the country, nor could they arrive. According to the CEO of NATS, Martin Rolfe, the technical problem was caused by a faulty flight plan. He went on to state that no such problem will ever happen again, telling BBC News,

“We’ve worked incredibly hard since we restored the service back on Monday to make sure that this type of event can’t happen again,”

On Monday, September 4, NATS is scheduled to deliver a full report on the incident. Hopefully, the findings in the report will help ATC services prevent another fiasco as they work to strengthen their systems and operations.

What do you think of this estimated cost? Have you been affected by these flight disruptions? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: The Guardian, Reuters