My, what a wonderful start to the ‘working week’, after the Bank Holiday: “Airport Chaos”! It’s the main subject this morning: “Newspaper headlines: Air traffic ‘chaos’ could last ‘for days’.” (link). The images are suitably harrowing. What I don’t understand is how all those mostly young people have apparently enough money to fly away. Don’t we have a ‘cost-of-living-crisis’?
There are also some photos from the Notting Hill Carnival. These must have gone into print before the ‘event’ got out of control. The DM reports that the police had earlier praised the event for the ‘positive’ attitude, but yesterday eight people were stabbed and a police officer was bitten (link). I’m sure the event organisers are glad that the ‘airport chaos’ has pushed reports of stabbings and biting off the front pages.
So let’s take a look at that ‘flight chaos’ which was caused by a fault at the National Air Traffic Services (Nats). Air traffic controllers were forced to ‘process flights’ manually. The DT reports:
“Around one million people were expected to travel through UK airports on the August bank holiday, with 3,049 flights due to depart and another 3,054 scheduled to arrive. But just after midday Nats announced a nationwide “failure of the flight planning system”, meaning controllers had to enter the information manually, significantly reducing the number of flights permitted to take off and land.” (paywalled link)
Allegedly, Nats ‘found and remedied the issue’ shortly after 3pm yesterday, but by that time, the thing had snowballed out of control. Obviously, the first suspicion was ‘cyber attack!’, either by the Russians or by the Chinese. Equally obviously, some Uniparty politicians blamed ‘teh torreees’ and cried that Sunak should get a grip. Yes, the PM also runs Nats … off with his head, innit! However, The Times reports:
“Government sources and aviation officials ruled out a cyberattack. Sources suggested the issue could be the result of an incorrectly filed plan by a French airline, although Nats would not comment. It is understood that officials know what caused the issue but not how it disabled the system. An investigation has been launched.” (link, paywalled)
Did the Frogs do it? Blimey! Am I the only one wondering why it was impossible for air controllers over here to notice and check this flight plan? Moreover, what to make of this admission of utter helplessness, that ‘officials’ have no idea how this disabled the system? The reassuring, bland words from the ‘Nats Operations Director’ are yet another fine example for ‘lessons will be learned’. She – of course it’s a ‘she’, what did you expect? Wimmin rule! – couched it in even more bland terms:
“On Monday night Juliet Kennedy, the Nats operations director, said the system failure would be “very thoroughly investigated”, adding that incoming and outgoing flights had to be reduced to “manage safety”. She added: “It will take some time for flights to return to normal, and we will continue to work with the airlines and the airports to recover the situation.” (paywalled link)
See – it’s all fine, they’ll investigate thoroughly and will finally find out how the system was disabled. Sadly, there will be more delays, as the DT warns, quoting ‘sources’ (my emphasis):
“A senior airline executive said: “It is going to be at least a couple of days of disruption. […] “You have aircraft out of position and crews out of hours. There is a knock-on impact. Any other weekend would have been manageable. It is a terrible time to happen. Passengers are going to have to grin and bear it. It is going to be different variances of bad – there are no good outcomes here.” The executive called for a government investigation into the “unstable” air transport infrastructure.” (paywalled link)
Why is it only now, after this massive disruption, that someone mentions the ‘unstable air transport infrastructure’, without pointing out why it is unstable? Has this infrastructure reached its limit, with people flocking to fly at ‘pre-covid levels’? Surely it must have been ‘unstable then, no?
Moreover: what if this really had been a cyber attack by the ‘usual suspects’, in times of even higher international precariousness? Would Nats be able to defend the system against such attacks? Not that we’d be told! It would only make us doubt ‘then system’ …
I spare you the sob stories of who all is stranded. They’ll eventually all get back or fly off, I’m sure. I’ll not even point out that the stranded celebrities and the stranded masses of apparently mostly young people demonstrate that their ‘green’ credentials are just lip service, just virtue signalling. Surely properly ‘green’ people wouldn’t be caught dead stranded in airports or stuck in aeroplanes unable to fly!
That’s all I have for today. It’s strangely satisfying to note, thanks to this ‘airport chaos’, that hypocrisy rules while we peasants are told nothing of the real state of air security so as not to frighten us. Have a good day.
Wonders will never cease. The bbc (yes, the bbc!) showed an article on the news today of all the graves with National flags flying over them in Ukraine. It went on to talk about many graveyards all over the country like this, with thousands of new graves resulting from the fighting with Russia.
Up to that point it was clear that someone was going to be fired at the bbc. Then the narrative changed. Bbc then said something along the lines of thirty to forty thousand men had been killed since the start of the war last year.
I suppose the msm is at last starting to come clean, leaning to the actualitie, just a little bit.
NATS has been suffering technical problems for 20 years. Most technology in the public sector does. Companies oversell and under provide to a public sector that repeatedly shows itself incompetent at commissioning and then managing technology projects. It’s worse in the NHS and MOD.
First Net Zero, now JET ZERO.
I thought jet zero was a good play on words and a great joke. How wrong.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/2040-zero-emissions-airport-target/2040-zero-emissions-airport-target
Maybe Khan has finally imposed Muslim law on the British people with this ULEZ scam
Jizyah, also spelled jizya, historically, a tax paid by non-Muslim populations to their Muslim rulers.
On the subject of transport chaos, but a little more down to earth, this should not go unmentioned. Happy ULEZ Day! When those in power don’t listen and democracy doesn’t work there’s only one option, DIY. The Blade Runners lead the way:
https://youtu.be/kEBO2fS1tZw?si=iG1hUKQLx44HMEEA
According to Katie Hopkins this airport stuff is all being done on purpose, all part of Agenda 2030. They’re trying to make travel hell in many ways, buy 2030, the globalists don’t want the little people to be able to fly anymore. About right I think!
“Katie Hopkins: Flight chaos: do you still believe this was a ‘technical glitch?’ ..or all by design?”
If this is correct then let’s hope a whistleblower comes forward.
Flyer My thoughts exactly. People don’t believe me when I say TPTB want to stop nearly all flights (for us plebs at least) by 2030.
(To digress , how’s it going to pan out for people with families abroad I wonder: I suppose they might just be able to fly but at great cost and hassle, and complete loss of their dignity and liberties?)
However I live near Gatwick Airport and we are still under threat of it being expanded to 2 runways. Much of it the overflow from Heathrow probably?
Much money will be spent and lives disrupted, then all concerned will find it was all for nothing and that there won’t be any flights, or hardly any!
But even if all concerned realised this, as some of them just might, they would still plough on regardless as surely there are many moneymaking opportunities in it.
Reminds me of when I met a builder working on the Millennium Dome 20 years ago. A white elephant and they knew it but cynically he and all concerned getting their hands in the money pot for as long as they could !
After years of consultations and re-consultations it appears plans for a second runway at Luton have been dropped. But a new terminal and new taxiways to optimise the existing runway and greatly increase passenger numbers are now the proposal. Why, when as you say all the propaganda is for reducing the plebs’ access to travel, whether by pricing or pandemic hoaxes or digital passports/IDs, why are airports desperate to expand? Looking further afield, why are the Maldives increasing their airport capacities to attract more visitors to the middle of nowhere, surely not a green idea, especially as they were supposed to be underwater by now.