How to Respond When the Sky Closes Due to a Technical Issue? Navigating Air Travel Shutdowns: Effective Response Strategies to Technical Disruptions

Safety should be at the heart of any aviation system (Murphy and Efthymiou, 2017). On 28th August 2023, due to a major failure of the flight planning system, the UK airspace was effectively shut down to maintain safe operations. The shutdown occurred on an August bank holiday, traditionally among the busiest flight days in the UK, and impacted one of the most complex and congested airspaces in the world (Foster et al., 2021). This technical failure impacted hundreds of thousands of passengers over a number of days and cost millions of pounds. For lessons to be learnt and resilience to be developed, there is a need to understand what occurred and propose recommendations that will support future effective response strategies to technical disruptions.
Under normal circumstances, the UK flight planning system processes approximately 800 flight plans per hour. As a result of the system failure, there was a need to revert to manually inputting flight plans, reducing the number processed to approximately 60 per hour. The impact was compounded by Heathrow and Gatwick, two of the busiest airports in Europe, both running at virtually total capacity. The system shutdown created a major incident across the aviation network that affected airports, airlines, tour operators and, most importantly, their passengers. Without the automated flight planning system, air traffic controllers could handle far fewer flights–just 15% of the normal flow. Aircraft already in flight were able to continue