Rolling live news coverage of business, economics and financial markets as disruption to UK air travel continues into third day
Willie Walsh has said the UK’s air traffic controller, Nats, should bear the costs related to the delays and cancellations.
Airlines can afford the costs. Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions airlines have made huge profits: Walsh’s old employer, British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG), made profits of £1.1bn in the first half of the year. But Walsh is using the opportunity of the Nats failures to argue for a major change in rules on who compensates passengers.
I believe there is a great opportunity for the UK post-Brexit to look at the way passenger compensation is dealt with to ensure that the people who are responsible for delays and cancellations ultimately bear the cost – and it’s borne by them, not passed on to other players in the system.
At the heart of this is a failure that should not have happened. Nats have a lot of questions to answer.
This is what really frustrates and angers airlines. This was completely outside the control of the airlines and yet airlines are subject to paying customers for delays, for cancellations, for looking after them, which is very considerable.
It’s very unfair because the air traffic control system that was at the heart of this failure doesn’t pay a single penny.
