back to article NATS ignored previous recommendations – IT cock-up report

The National Air Traffic Services failed to implement recommendations to mitigate IT risks, according to an independent report into the mega systems failure in December which left thousands of passengers stranded in Blighty. In December 2014, 120 flights were cancelled and 500 delayed for 45 minutes, affecting 10,000 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    another privatisation success - not

    whoop, looking forward to NHS sell off!!!

    1. Cynic_999

      Re: another privatisation success - not

      Do you seriously believe that the government is better than the private sector regarding IT projects?

    2. AndyS

      Re: another privatisation success - not

      There should be a rule against privatising organisations with the word "National" in the title.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money not invested

    Is money in the pockets of the shareholders. Simples!

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Money not invested

      You seem to follow the low-brow "Marxist" view of what shareholding is all about and how investment works.

      Please upgrade to IQ 75.

      Also, saying that "investment was not as high as expected" could just mean that someone decided that things were good enough and didn't want to go for gold-plating or that traction could not be achieved because projects went slower than expected. Simples.

  3. CAPS LOCK

    I don't care, I'm too poor to fly anywhere...

    ... I should work harder instead of spending time on here!

    1. Anonymous Blowhard

      Re: I don't care, I'm too poor to fly anywhere...

      I often have to fly for work-related activities; I'd prefer if safety in the air wasn't a "for profit" activity.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: I don't care, I'm too poor to fly anywhere...

        I'd prefer if safety in the air wasn't a "for profit" activity

        Enjoy your soviet-era bare-knuckles flights.

  4. Captain TickTock

    Qantas?

    Methinks the pic has been nicked from another story!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Qantas?

      And the nose of the plane has obviously been extended or it would not be possible to tie the knot!!

      The state of modern journalism.

    2. Graham Marsden
      Coat

      Re: Qantas?

      > Methinks the pic has been nicked from another story!

      "Surely you can't be serious..."

      "I am, and don't call me Shirley!"

      (The original story was called Airplane, of course)

  5. Gordon 10
    Meh

    Typical Weasel Words on both sides it seems.

    1. Failure to implement last set of recommendations. Question were they relevant to this case?

    2. We welcome recognition of our crash strategic investment program brought on by senior management panic strategic planning.

    I suspect a pox on both their houses is called for.

  6. JaitcH
    Thumb Down

    Safety on the cheap ...

    never works.

    And NATS wanted to assume control of all of Europe? Fat chance.

  7. Indolent Wretch

    >>We agree with the panel that it is unrealistic to expect that complex systems such as ours will never fail

    Straw Grasped! Mission Complete!

  8. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    ...continue to invest...

    "To mitigate this we will continue to invest in making sure that failures are extremely rare and the impact of such failures on the travelling public are minimised as far as reasonably practical."

    "Continue to invest"? - That sounds like no increase, ie continue to under-invest.

    "as far as reasonably practical" - Who gets to define "reasonably"? The shareholders?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: ...continue to invest...

      "as far as reasonably practical" - Who gets to define "reasonably"? The shareholders?

      I'm sorry, shareholder companies don't work that way.

      It's the safety assurance people. Who put up a recommendation to the board. Who then decides.Which then goes into the minutes. If the regulator is ok with that, cool.

      That sounds like no increase, ie continue to under-invest.

      Who gets to define "under-invest"? Retards in forums?

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: ...continue to invest...

        "Who gets to define "under-invest"? Retards in forums?"

        That would be "Former business secretary Vince Cable" as reported in the article. And the lack of implementation of previous recommendations as per the official report referenced in the article although I suppose that might be incompetence rather than a lack of investment in training, procedures, people or equipment.

  9. Cynic_999

    Is it really a safety issue?

    The failure may have caused delays and inconvenience, but I am not convinced that in the event it caused an unreasonable increase in risk to passengers. IIUC the controllers reverted to the old manual system which is just as safe, but has less capacity (though arguably there is greater risk of the possibility of human error in a manual system than of a computer [i.e. programming] error in an automated system).

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    But they expect driverless cars running Android to be totally safe?

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