(Bloomberg) — London's airports sought to restore orderly service after a computer failure caused delays at Heathrow, Europe's busiest hub, raising concern about the reliability of a major control center that's suffered repeat malfunctions.
The fault, which occurred mid afternoon local time in the U.K., was due to a technical issue at the Swanwick air-traffic center and did not involve a power outage, according to the NATS authority, which said it is "restricting traffic volumes in accordance with capability we currently have in our system."
Today's fault, which also affected other airports in southern Britain and rippled as far north as Manchester, follows a sequence of similar incidents. In July last year, NATS had to restrict the number of aircraft flying across the south of England and those taking off from airports. Swanwick, on which Lockheed Martin Corp. was prime contractor, opened almost six years late in 2002 and at least 30% over budget after repeated software glitches.
"We apologize for any delays and our incident response team has been mobilized," National Air Traffic Services Holdings Ltd. said in a statement. "Every possible action is being taken to assist in resolving the situation and to confirm the details."
Slow Recovery
Today's malfunction caused the cancellation of 50 flights at London Heathrow, which warned that other services might still be lost. More than 140 departures, or about a quarter of flights, were delayed, according to aviation tracking website FlightAware.com.
British Airways said customers should expect delays to both departing and arriving flights, and that the airline "will do all we can to minimize any impact," according to a statement. Easyjet Plc, the low-cost airline based at Luton airport on the outskirts of London, also said operations are affected, and that passengers should check flight trackers.
NATS told airlines on a conference call that they should expect a "a measured recovery" in the course of the evening, provided there are no further issues, according to Monarch Airlines Ltd. spokeswoman Liz Falconer. Some inbound traffic was diverted to other U.K. airports.
"Any disruption to our aviation system is a matter of the utmost concern, especially at this time of year in the run-up to the holiday season," Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said in a statement. "Disruption on this scale is simply unacceptable and I have asked NATS for a full explanation."
Repeat Issues
The Swanwick operations room manages the en-route airspace over England and Wales up to the Scottish border as well as lower-altitude traffic to and from London's airports. The center, which was inaugurated in 2002, has experienced faults previously. Heathrow airport and other terminals in southern England suffered disruption to flights in 2008 following a breakdown in the control system, based near Fareham, England.
The center was designed to give NATS 30 percent more capacity, helping it handle 3 million flights a year by 2020 from about 2 million when it opened.
"Obviously there are safe diversion airports quite nearby in the U.K., but it will be a very serious disruption, particularly for departures," said Justin Bronk, an aerospace technology expert at the Royal United Services Institute.
–With assistance from Alan Levin in Washington, Andrea Rothman in Toulouse and Jillian Ward, Tom Beardsworth and Kari Lundgren in London.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.