Aviation organisations will conduct an industry-wide rehearsal of major flight disruption in the wake of the August 2023 air traffic control (ATC) meltdown, MPs were told.
Martin Rolfe, chief executive of ATC provider National Air Traffic Services (Nats), said the event will be held “after the summer”.
Nearly 750,000 passengers were disrupted when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28 last year after Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
An inquiry into what happened published an interim report in March which highlighted the lack of “any multi-agency rehearsal of the management of an incident of this nature and scale”.
Giving evidence to the Commons’ Transport Select Committee on Tuesday, Mr Rolfe said Nats has proposed to regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) “we take the lead” on “running practice scenarios”.
He went on: “The CAA is supportive, the airlines and airports are supportive.
“We are planning to do an industry-wide practice run for a disruption scenario after the summer.”
