UK air traffic chaos to cost airlines £100m as ‘dodgy flight plan’ blamed – business live
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Airline costs from air traffic control failure could reach £100m – former BA boss
The airline industry will bear costs of as much as £100m because of the UK air traffic control collapse on Monday, according to the former chief executive of British Airways’ owner who now leads the industry’s lobby group.
Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (Iata), said that 1,100 flights were cancelled and hundreds of thousands of passengers had their journeys affected.
He told BBC Radio’s Today programme:
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.
Key events
Airlines boss Willie Walsh said the airlines are unlikely to be able to recoup any of the costs from Nats.
It is fair to say he is not happy with Nats, the private company that runs the UK’s airspace.
He told the BBC’s Today programme:
This is what really frustrates and angers airlines. This was completely outside the control of the airlines and yet airlines are subject to paying customers for delays, for cancellations, for looking after them, which is very considerable.
It’s very unfair because the air traffic control system that was at the heart of this failure doesn’t pay a single penny.
Airline costs from air traffic control failure could reach £100m – former BA boss
The airline industry will bear costs of as much as £100m because of the UK air traffic control collapse on Monday, according to the former chief executive of British Airways’ owner who now leads the industry’s lobby group.
Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (Iata), said that 1,100 flights were cancelled and hundreds of thousands of passengers had their journeys affected.
He told BBC Radio’s Today programme:
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.
European stock markets have edged up at the opening bell, with the UK’s FTSE 100 up by 0.2%, in line with its peers.
Insurer Prudential is the biggest FTSE 100 gainer, up 2.5% after publishing half-year results which showed increased profits.
Here are the opening snaps from across Europe, via Reuters:
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EUROPE’S STOXX 600 UP 0.2%
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FRANCE’S CAC 40 UP 0.3%, SPAIN’S IBEX UP 0.2%
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EURO STOXX INDEX UP 0.2%; EURO ZONE BLUE CHIPS UP 0.2%
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GERMANY’S DAX UP 0.2%
EasyJet to run extra flights after air traffic control collapse
Good morning, and welcome to our live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets.
EasyJet has said it will put on five repatriation flights to ensure stranded customers can get home as disruption from the collapse of UK air traffic control systems continued for a third day.
The failure of the air traffic control system, run by private company Nats, has been blamed on a single corrupted flight plan entered by an unnamed airline, according to reports.
Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of Nats, the national air traffic service, said the company has “worked incredibly hard since we restored the service back on Monday to make sure that this type of event can’t happen again”.
In interviews with the BBC, he said:
Clearly we live in a world where things like this occasionally do happen. The vast majority of them are fixed and nobody notices, no one is disrupted. Very occasionally we end up with a situation which isn’t possible to fix immediately.
While I agree it is absolutely not the service that we would ever want to provide, our absolute core is providing a safe service that gets everybody to their destination.
In a statement last night, easyJet said:
During this traditionally very busy week for travel, options for returning to the UK are more limited on some routes and so easyJet will be operating five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days from Palma and Faro on August 30, and Tenerife and Enfidha on Thursday August 31 and from Rhodes on Friday September 1.
We are also operating larger aircraft on key routes including Faro, Ibiza, Dalaman and Tenerife to provide some additional 700 seats this week.
The agenda
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9:30am BST: UK Bank of England consumer credit (July; previous: £1.66bn; consensus: £1.3bn)
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9:30am BST: UK Bank of England mortgage approvals (July; prev.:54.7k; cons.: 51k)
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10am BST: EU economic sentiment index (August; prev.: 94.5; cons.; 93.7)
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1:15pm BST: US ADP national jobs created (August; prev.: 324k; cons.: 195k)
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1:30pm BST: US GDP second estimate (Q2; prev.: 2.4% annualised; cons.: 2.4%)
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