Computer Problem Delays Europe Flights

Brussels, Belgium —(Map)

On Tuesday, a computer problem caused delays for thousands of flights in Europe. Some flights were cancelled. The problem has now been fixed.

In Europe there can be as many as 36,000 airplane flights in a single day. Eurocontrol runs a computer system, known as ETFMS, which helps figure out when and where planes can fly.

This computer system, which is in Brussels, Belgium, is sometimes called the “slot computer”. It helps find slots, or paths in the sky, that planes can take. After the computer system finds the slots, Eurocontrol tells the people who control the planes at different airports.

Eurocontrol said that 29,500 flights were planned for Tuesday in Europe. The group added that about “half of those could have some delay” because of the computer problem. Eurocontrol said it had a plan to keep everything safe even though the system wasn’t working the way it usually did.

Many airlines delayed their flights, sometimes by three hours or more. Other flights had to be cancelled. One thing that made the situation easier was that hundreds of flights from the airline Air France had already been cancelled. That was because many people who work for Air France were on strike. They had stopped working to complain about the amount of money they are paid.

Eurocontrol has not yet said what the problem was. They also did not explain why a backup system near Paris was not used. But by early evening on Tuesday, they said that the slot computer was working again.

Eurocontrol said it was sorry about the problem, but pointed out that their computer system had only stopped working one other time in the last 20 years.

Extra Delays in England

People in England may have some extra delays on Wednesday. But those delays will be for a different reason. For the last 40 years, the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has used paper strips to make notes about the orders they give to pilots.

Now NATS will be changing to a computer system. NATS says that while they are changing over to computers, they will send planes out more slowly than usual. They want to make sure that everything goes smoothly. They expect delays of 10 to 20 minutes.