Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed that the cost of flight cancellations to airlines after air traffic control systems failed in August will be considered in an ongoing review.
After the likes of Ryanair Holdings PLC (LSE:RYA) and easyJet PLC called on the regulator to hold air traffic controller NATS responsible for the system glitch which prompted thousands of flights to be cancelled, the CAA gave an update on Friday.
“Airline and airport costs of providing care, assistance, and re-routing to consumers” will be considered, the regulator said.
According to the trade body, International Air Transport Association, the cost to airlines of the cancellations, which affected some 300,000, could be in the region of £100 million.
These were caused by the shutdown of the NATS flight planning system on Monday, August 28, which stopped working when some incorrect data was received.
As a result, air traffic controllers were left manually inputting flight data and limiting traffic for several hours during the afternoon.
Though resolved later that day, the incident led to travel chaos for the best part of a week as airlines worked to repatriate passengers who had missed flights.
Airlines are legally required to accommodate and feed passengers whose flights are cancelled.
Recommendations will be made based on the CAA’s ongoing review, which was confirmed to have begun on Friday.
“This event had a significant impact on many passengers, businesses and the aviation industry and it is clear lessons need to be learnt,” review panel chair Jeff Halliwell said.
Shares in easyJet and Ryanair rose by 2.3% and 1.9% respectively on Friday.