Wittenborg Researcher Analyses UK Flight Crisis Communication Failures

07.07.2025

Work by Adam Jones Sheds Light on Strategies and Possible Improvements

On 28 August 2023, a bank holiday, a major failure in the UK’s flight planning system caused chaos, disrupting thousands of flights, affecting an estimated 700,000 passengers and costing millions of pounds. The crisis highlighted not only technical issues but also problems in communication between National Air Traffic Services (NATS), airlines and customers.

The incident is analysed in a recently published chapter by Wittenborg associate professor Adam Jones, titled ‘How to Respond When the Sky Closes Due to a Technical Issue? Navigating Air Travel Shutdowns’. Part of the Routledge volume ‘Travel Disruptions: Impacts, Responses and Resilience’, the chapter is co-authored by communication researchers and consultants Elyssa Fanning and Geri Silverstone.

“By reviewing government documents, aviation reports, media articles and social media posts within the framework of crisis management and communication theory, we aimed to better understand the situation and propose more effective measures for future crises,” Jones explains.

A day of turbulence

The incident began with an error in the NATS system, which incorrectly assumed that a flight bound for Deauville, France, was instead headed to Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, USA – as both airports shared the same code at the time. Since the flight had departed from Los Angeles International Airport, also in the USA, the system concluded that it would not enter UK airspace, even though it was, in fact, scheduled to cross it. As a result, the system went into maintenance mode to prevent the transfer of what appeared to be corrupt flight data.

Due to the system failure, there was a need to revert to manually inputting flight plans, reducing the number processed to approximately 60 per hour, when under normal circumstances the UK flight planning system processes approximately 800 flight plans per hour. The impact was compounded by Heathrow and Gatwick, two of the busiest airports in Europe, being affected. The shutdown created a major incident across the aviation network that affected airports, airlines, tour operators and, most of all, their passengers. Over four and a half hours after the initial failure, the problem was finally rectified, by which time more than 2,000 flights had been cancelled.

Communication hurdles

Jones highlights that most major airlines and airports received official notification from NATS only at 11:30, nearly three hours after the first signs of system issues. “The challenge for airlines with such late notification was that it became more difficult to recover and accommodate the revised flying programme. It was not until 15:00, seven hours after the system failure, that NATS informed airlines that the system had returned to normal,” he comments.

The chapter underlines that, to inform passengers about the situation as well as their rights – such as rescheduling, refunds and compensations – airlines used emails, text messages and push notifications via their apps. Some companies even set up dedicated contact centres, proactively calling those who had not been able to amend their booking and informing them of their options.

Nevertheless, many passengers reported receiving more information through online sources and social media than from their airlines, while some companies even published incorrect information regarding passengers’ rights. “On a typical day, airlines handle hundreds of flights, but with such extensive cancellations and delays, the process of managing refund and reroute requests was significantly slower, with telephone lines and email communications being quickly overwhelmed. Social media channels provided alternative options, and many airlines reported that their teams were working around the clock to respond to customer queries and concerns,” the associate professor emphasises.

He adds that, given the scale of the disruption, assistance for delayed passengers was problematic. “Airports’ capacity to accommodate the delayed passengers was limited. Airport restaurants, cafes and retailers did not have the resources or supplies to cater for the additional demand and remain open for the extended period required. Moreover, the disruption generated significant costs for airlines, with some of them spending millions of pounds to cover expenses such as consumer hotel costs, meal costs and other flights.”

How to better handle crisis situations

Drawing on the frameworks of Restoration Theory and Situational Crisis Communication Theory, the chapter argues that NATS initially adopted a communication strategy of denial, followed by evasion of responsibility, framing the incident as an accident.

According to the authors, airlines were more proactive, making efforts to mitigate the impact of the crisis, reduce its severity and actively contribute to resolving the issue. Additionally, they positioned themselves as victims of the NATS system shutdown. “There was a consensus that airlines responded well to the impact of the systems failure. They had learnt from previous incidents, such as the 2010 Icelandic Ash Cloud, how to manage and respond to such situations,” says Jones.

Nevertheless, the chapter offers several recommendations for improvement. These include regulations to support the enforcement of airlines’ and airports’ consumer duties, enhancements to aviation support systems’ communication channels and improvements in the methods airlines use to communicate with passengers. The authors also suggest appointing a single post-holder with overall management responsibility and full accountability for such incidents and their resolution. Finally, they propose reviewing the systemic approach adopted by NATS to ensure more robust and timely procedures for problem identification and resolution.

“A pillar of crisis management is the communication of crisis-related information to stakeholders, which influences their response behaviour and shapes public opinion. Effective response strategies require the effective interaction of human and technical components to ensure one flight plan does not jeopardise the whole system,” Jones concludes.