How a remote worker’s password mistake in Britain grounded 7 lakh flyers – Firstpost

An airport meltdown last August left hundreds of thousands of air travelers stranded at British airports during a hectic bank holiday weekend.

Research has now shown that the chaos was partly caused by a password error by an engineer working from home.

The technical glitch left an estimated 700,000 passengers with a travel nightmare. Because the system failed completely, airports in the United Kingdom could no longer operate. Flights were grounded and unable to take off or land, causing serious delays that stretched over several days.

The disruption not only caused inconvenience to travelers but also hit airlines hard, with compensation costs exceeding $120 million.

This is what happened.

The airport meltdown

The outage occurred on the morning of August 28, 2023, one of the busiest travel days of the year in Britain.

The outage caused the collapse of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) computer system, leading to widespread flight cancellations and chaos among passengers.

A Civil Aviation Authority investigation found that despite high demand for travel, IT support technicians were not on site and were instead allowed to work remotely.

At 8.32am, a Level 1 engineer from NATS’s Swanwick plant in Hampshire initiated diagnostics as soon as the system failed.

However, progress was slow as the senior tech support technician was working from home and was having trouble logging in. Due to the crash, his password was not recognized.

The report noted: “After exhausting remote intervention options, it took 1.5 hours for the individual to arrive on site to perform the necessary full system restart, which was not possible remotely.”

Chaos at British airports

Four hours after the first outage, the German manufacturer of the system, Frequentis Comsoft, was finally contacted. They quickly identified the problem, but at that point the backlog was enormous, leaving some passengers stranded for several days, as reported by the Daily mail.

Michael Bull, one of the affected passengers, was stuck on a plane waiting for clearance to take off but was informed of a delay of at least 30 minutes. Another flight, just ten minutes from Edinburgh Airport, was abruptly diverted in mid-air, according to a report shared on X.

Holiday traveler Steph Wagstaff described her ordeal Wales Onlinesaying: “We are still stuck, we have been stuck since we arrived at the airport just after 7:45pm last night. We only knew our flights had been canceled because we had caught the flight last night at 6:15pm and our transfer was at 7pm.”

EasyJet CEO John Lundren said this BBC, “Airlines then had to pick up the pieces and the costs, which ran into the millions.”

According to the report, the chaos forced airlines to pay out more than $126 million in compensation to affected passengers.

Research chair Jeff Halliwell told it Daily mail that the August 28 event represented a “major failure” of air traffic control.

“It caused significant suffering to more than 700,000 passengers and resulted in significant costs to airlines and airports,” he said.

British airports are taking new measures

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which led the investigation, has recommended a series of new policy measures to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.

Transport Minister Louise Haigh labeled the failure of the NATS system “an unprecedented event” and expressed support for the proposed changes, particularly those aimed at strengthening regulatory oversight.

In a report by the Daily mailHaigh said: “I have said before that I will be the lead passenger and my priority is to ensure that all passengers feel confident when they fly – that is why my department will look to implement reforms, when we can, to ensure air travelers with the highest possible level of protection.”

In total, the CAA has proposed 48 new measures, one of which highlights the importance of having senior engineers on site during crucial periods, even when remote working is generally permitted.

Rob Bishton, CEO of the Civil Aviation Authority, reiterated the need for these reforms, saying: “It is vital that we learn the lessons from every major incident like this.”

With input from agencies