Air travel chaos: Could it happen again?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2023
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
UK airports are still struggling to recover from the hours-long failure of processing flight plans – with warnings delays could last for days.
Downing Street has ruled out a cyberattack, but there is speculation that an incorrect flight plan filed by a French airline could be to blame.
On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson looks at what went wrong and if a similar problem could happen again. His guests are former air traffic controller Michele Robson, who was stuck at Jersey airport yesterday, and travel editor for The Independent, Simon Calder.
Senior podcast producer: Annie Joyce
Podcast producer: Emma-Rae Woodhouse
Interviews producer: Alex Edden
Podcast promotions producer: David Chipakupaku
Editor: Paul Stanworth
Transcript
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| 0:57.1 | to find out how. Hi, I'm Neil Patterson. Welcome to the Sky News Daily. And I have to see, I'm feeling |
| 1:05.4 | pretty refreshed. I got to enjoy a bank holiday Monday out of the office, a very peaceful |
| 1:10.8 | at Bank Holiday Monday, in fact, which is rare because I happen to enjoy a bank holiday Monday out of the office, a very peaceful bank holiday Monday, in fact, |
| 1:12.7 | which is rare because I happen to live not too far from the Heathrow flight path. |
| 1:17.1 | In fact, it was only when a friend started moaning about his trip today being cancelled |
| 1:21.3 | that I realised that there had been far fewer planes disturbing our time in the beer garden than you would have expected. |
| 1:27.4 | By now, you will have heard why. |
| 1:29.6 | What's been described as a technical fault in the air traffic control system |
| 1:33.3 | led to flights being delayed and cancelled, |
| 1:36.2 | and passengers left stranded at airports around the world. |
| 1:39.2 | What on earth could have brought the usually pretty efficient UK airspace to its knees. |
| 1:44.6 | Let's find out. |
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