Air traffic control: passengers to face more expensive plane tickets to fund Nats after August bank holiday meltdown

Passengers will be charged more per flight to fund the UK’s air traffic control system after the meltdown this summer that led to thousands of flights being cancelled. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced on Thursday (26 October) that the average charge per passenger will rise by around 43p to £2.08 per flight.

The CAA said that despite the increase the charge is still lower than the average level between 2015 and 2019 and is “broadly in line” with European counterparts. The rise allows the company which runs the air traffic control systems, called Nerl, to recover the revenue that it lost during the Covid-19 pandemic - and the recovery has been spread over 10 years. Tim Alderslade, chief executive of industry group AirlinesUK, told the Telegraph that passengers would “inevitably end up footing the bill” through higher ticket prices and the decision “cannot be justified”.

The CAA also announced that the amount that planes will have to pay to fund the air traffic control system will rise by 43p per passenger. The average charge will go from £47 to £64 per service unit – a measure of a flight’s distance and weight – for the period between 2023 and 2027, the watchdog said.

Over the August bank holiday the UK was plunged into travel chaos due to a system failure by Nats, formerly known as National Air Traffic Services. The chief executive of Nats, Martin Rolfe, said the system shut itself down after receiving highly unusual duplicate "markers" on a flight plan.

More than 2,000 flights had to be cancelled due to the glitch, leaving tens of thousands of passengers facing huge delays to their flights. Airlines such as Ryanair have already called for Nats to be liable for the cost of disruption it causes, with its boss Michael O’Leary saying it is the “least” it could do. The CAA responded that it will conduct an independent review and consider “airline and airport costs”.

NationalWorld contacted Nats asking if it is right passengers are charged more despite it being their failure. The firm said that it is still “studying the CAA’s final decision”.

Nats said: “This regulatory decision does not directly address the impacts of the flight planning system failure on August 28, but points to the separate review they are undertaking. Provision for meeting service targets (notably average delay per flight) is, however, a core element of the framework.”