ABTA's statement on the latest NATS outage

Luke Petherbridge, ABTA's Director of Public Affairs, said:

“This is the second NATS incident to cause disruption in the last fortnight, and fourth in recent years. It’s simply not good enough. The industry and travelling public will want answers – not only on what has gone wrong, but critically how the system is going to be made more resilient to avoid future outages.

“These incidents cause inconvenience to travellers and significant financial costs for airlines and the wider travel industry, including additional work and costs for ABTA’s tour operator and travel agent members.

“As these NATS issues are entirely outside of travel companies’ control, the Government should seriously consider whether NATS should be made to compensate the wider industry for such events.”

Luke Petherbridge
Director of Public Affairs, ABTA