Despite the massive disruption caused by a failure earlier this year, air traffic control has warned that airline fares will rise.
Thousands of flights were cancelled as a result of the technical difficulty, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
An investigation initiated by the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (Nats) concluded that the failure was caused by a flight plan error, which forced the airspace to close – and only reopened 10 hours later.
However, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has since said Nats could raise the amount it charges airlines by 25 per cent to ensure “safety and quality service”.
The fee will rise from £47 to £64 per flight, an increase of 43p per passenger to £2.08 on average.
This would be in place until 2027.
However, airlines have slammed the move, saying it “cannot be justified” after thousands of passengers were left stranded by the disruption.
The August air traffic control failure was the worst single day’s disruption to UK flying since the Icelandic volcano in 2010.
As many as 200,000 passengers were hit by the delayed and cancelled flights due to the Nats outage over the August bank holiday.
Just weeks later, another NATS glitch resulted in 58 flights being cancelled to and from London Gatwick.
This was caused by “short notice sickness” in its ATC tower which resulted in a restriction in the number of planes that could take off.