Interesting to read that Martin Rolfe still commands the confidence of No.10 to at least report back on the outcome of the investigation into this week's mess. My guess is once he's shared the root cause and the investigation's findings he'll cease to be CEO of NATS.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/...f-executive-air-traffic-control-b1296285.html
After 3 major fails in 3 years, he should be packed off to the job centre. If most ordinary folk where at the heart of such a monumental cock up* we'd be out on our ear. But this is UK plc, where the consumer doesn't matter so long as the profits roll...
(*I know that the suspicion is a cyber attack from some quarters, but even if it was this there should have been better protection / mitigation in place for such a critical system)
I got caught up in this yesterday trying to fly out to Crete from Manchester. The really galling thing was when we finally found out we were being cancelled and the holiday binned, I could literally see the craft allocated to us on one of the remote stands. Worse still was the complete breakdown in comms, I know that staff on the ground knew little more than us, but when the time came for cancelling multiple Jet2 flights hundreds of use were just walked out to Border Control without anything more than "it's been cancelled" from staff. Were we to wait landside for a later flight, or one in the morning? Were our holidays canned? Nothing was clear until emails started to arrive confirming that we had our holidays cancelled and will eventually get a refund. This was around 9pm last night, in the baggage hall with thousands of increasingly angry passengers trying to find out if they'd even get their bags, let alone which carousel scrum you had to go to. Thankfully it "only" took 2 hours from leaving departures for me to get my suitcase, the hall was still rammed when I shoulder barged myself to the exit.
I've already ranted about this on social media, so I'll keep this short. It is time to bring key infrastructure systems like NATS back into full public control, and more importantly accountability. One failure is a failure too many, 3 is criminal. And more importantly, situations like this should trigger compensation not just refunds for cancellations. It's an absolute disgrace that some people have to wait for days to get flights home as some poor souls are having to do, or just simply having to mill about increasingly packed and stressful areas like the baggage hall whilst desperately trying to work out which belt their luggage may appear. Perhaps if such measures were in place, some minds might focus a bit more.
