When “work from home” doesn’t work out.
About 700,000 British air travelers were left stranded over a holiday weekend last year after a technical glitch preventing planes from taking off and landing took several hours to fix — partially due to engineers working from home that day, according to a newly released inquiry.
Travel-hungry Brits were forced to spend their vacation days waiting at airports around the country as dozens of airlines canceled flights due to the glitch on Aug. 28, 2023, a bank holiday.
The disastrous glitch was caused by a corrupted flight plan file for a flight destined for Paris — which essentially grounded all flights, according to The Sun.
Officials at the Civil Aviation Authority now say that IT support engineers who were allowed to work from home were at the center of the national travel nightmare.
Specifically, one IT support engineer for National Air Traffic Services tasked with resolving the developing glitch, was unable to successfully log in to their work computer remotely after the system crashed, according to the inquiry obtained by The Sun.
After discovering the problem, IT specialists made their way from their homes to the airport — taking an hour and a half — and upon arrival were still not able to fix the problem, the inquiry found.
It took a total of four hours for authorities to address the issue after it was first flagged and by that time, the delay’s ripple effects already caused scheduling issues that would last well beyond the four hours.
The debacle caused delays for 700,000 passengers over the course of several days and resulted in airlines paying out over $126 million in restitution to burdened travelers.
The CAA recommended 48 new policy solutions in its inquiry, which included bolstering contingency and crisis response plans and calling for senior engineers to be on duty at NATS offices at all times.
The glitch wasn’t the last airport nightmare that has plagued the British isle.
Just this past summer, many of the King’s subjects were forced to wait for hours for their flights in part due to a new restrictive rule that prevented passengers from bringing liquids of more than three ounces onto a plane.
