Despite the massive disruption caused by a failure earlier this year, air traffic control has warned that airline fares will rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands of flights were cancelled as a result of the technical difficulty, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fee will rise from \u00a347 to \u00a364 per flight, an increase of 43p per passenger to \u00a32.08 on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would be in place until 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, airlines have slammed the move, saying it “cannot be justified” after thousands of passengers were left stranded by the disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The August air traffic control failure was the worst single day\u2019s disruption to UK flying since the\u00a0Icelandic volcano in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As many as 200,000 passengers were hit by the delayed and cancelled flights due to the Nats outage over the August bank holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just weeks later,\u00a0another NATS glitch\u00a0resulted in 58 flights being cancelled to and from London Gatwick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … <\/p>\n