Delays at Heathrow due to computer failure

London’s airports sought to restore orderly service after a computer failure yesterday caused delays at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest hub, raising concern about the reliability of a major control centre that has suffered repeated malfunctions.

The fault, which occurred in the afternoon, was due to a technical issue at the Swanwick air-traffic centre and did not involve a power outage, according to the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) authority, which said it was “restricting traffic volumes in accordance with capability we currently have in our system”.

Affecting other airports in southern Britain and as far north as Manchester, the failure follows a sequence of similar incidents.

In July last year, Nats had to restrict the number of aircraft flying across the south of England and those taking off from airports.

Swanwick opened almost six years late in 2002 and at least 30 per cent over budget after a number of software glitches.

More than 140 departures, about a quarter of flights, were delayed, according to aviation tracking website Flightaware.com. –(Bloomberg)