Latest news with #AirTrafficServices
Time of India
31-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
London's Heathrow Airport hit by more flight cancellations after air traffic failure
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills At least 16 flights to and from London's Heathrow Airport were cancelled on Thursday, a day after technical problems with Britain's air traffic control system caused widespread disruption across the country's Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides air traffic control services for planes flying in UK airspace and the eastern part of the North Atlantic, said on Wednesday its systems were fully operational with capacity returning to normal after it switched to a back-up second outage in as many years at NATS also affected Gatwick Airport near London, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland and other locations, resulting in 122 cancellations as of 1830 GMT on Wednesday, according to aviation analytics firm website showed that at least 16 flights, including departures to Brussels and Toronto and arrivals from New York and Berlin, had been cancelled on Britain's largest and Europe's busiest airport, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the latest Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon called on NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to resign, saying no lessons had been learnt since the August 2023 disruption caused by a malfunctioning in the automatic processing of flight which on Wednesday apologised to those affected by the failure, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a response to McMahon's was also hit by a fire at a power sub-station in March which stranded thousands of passengers.
New York Post
24-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Children in remote communities denied seats on near-empty ‘Indigenous-only' charter flights
The Australian government will review charter flight arrangements for students living in remote outback communities after claims non-Indigenous students were prevented from boarding planes because they were not ABSTUDY recipients. Derek Lord, a father of two boys living in the far north west Queensland town of Normanton about five hours north of Mt Isa and eight hours west of Cairns in the Gulf of Carpentaria, said his sons faced a 'six-day ordeal' to get home after they were not allowed to purchase seats on a nearly empty, taxpayer-funded flight. Advertisement 7 Derek Lord said his sons faced a 'six-day ordeal' to get home after they were not allowed to purchase seats on a nearly empty, taxpayer-funded flight. Lord, who is the Air Traffic Services Reporting Officer at the tiny Normanton Airport, said he regularly sees 20-seat planes arriving with fewer than half the seats occupied. But he claims his two sons, who board at school in Charters Towers, 90 minutes southwest of Townsville, have been turned away from those same flights because they're not ABSTUDY recipients. 'My boys have been left sitting at the airport, bags packed, because they weren't allowed on a plane with empty seats,' Lord said in a statement via Katter's Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger, Robbie Katter. Advertisement 'We'd gladly pay for those seats — anything to avoid the six-day ordeal we have to go through with commercial flights to get them home for the holidays when roads were cut off due to flooding.' ABSTUDY, introduced in 1969, is a federal government scheme for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that offers education-related financial assistance, including course fees and travel costs for students who study away from home. 7 Lord said he regularly sees 20-seat planes arriving with fewer than half the seats occupied. Robbie Katter MP/Facebook Katter has slammed the new school charter flight arrangement as fundamentally flawed and unfair, describing it as a system that fosters division and fails to meet the needs of remote communities. Advertisement 'This is not an Indigenous problem. It's a remote living problem,' Katter said. 'When you've got families living in the same town, sending their kids to the same school, but being treated differently — that's wrong. It risks creating division in communities where it doesn't exist.' Katter said the situation had been made worse by the government's decision to hand the contract to a UK-based operator with no local experience, replacing long-time provider Volantair. 'We had a capable, locally based operator with 20 years' experience and regional knowledge,' he said. Advertisement 'Now we've got a foreign company charging up to $1157 per ABSTUDY seat — almost triple what a regular flight costs — and delivering a shambolic service.' 7 'This is not an Indigenous problem. It's a remote living problem,' Katter said. Google Maps The new operator, Air Charter Services, was appointed last year by Corporate Travel Management (CTM), which is responsible for the ABSTUDY charter contract. Air Charter Services and CTM have been contacted for comment. Since the change, according to Katter, planes had shown up without passengers to collect, flights had gone unused, and single-engine aircraft without weather radar had been deployed into some of Queensland's toughest flying conditions. 'Kids are being left stranded, rural and remote families are being ignored,' Katter said. 'It's time these services were made available to any child living remotely — not just those eligible under a narrow government program — and returned to experienced local operators who know the land, know the people, and care about the outcomes.' 7 The new operator, Air Charter Services, was appointed last year by CTM, which is responsible for the ABSTUDY charter contract. Robbie Katter MP/Facebook Advertisement Speaking to 2GB's Ben Fordham on Tuesday, Lord said he had even tried paying for seats on the planes but his sons were denied 'because they don't fall under ABSTUDY'. 'The carrier even agreed to take our money but the booking company that now does it, which is overseas, refused to allow our children to get on because they don't meet the criteria,' he said. 'We don't understand it either. It's taxpayer-funded. Even if we weren't willing to pay, the plane is coming here, it's being paid for by everyone's taxes whether you're Indigenous or non-Indigenous, the kids are from the same town.' Lord noted 'we're in the middle of a flood crisis and we couldn't get in our out', recounting the tortuous journey home for his sons. Advertisement 'So there was no way to get our kids home unless it's on a private charter ourselves, or through Rex, and Rex can be up to two, three weeks waiting for a seat,' he said. 7 Lord noted 'we're in the middle of a flood crisis and we couldn't get in our out', recounting the tortuous journey home for his sons. Google Maps 'We would have to bus them down to Townsville and then either bus them or plane them up to Cairns, and then they'd have to sit in Cairns over the weekend because there's no Rex flights, and then they'd have to fly home on Rex if we could get a Monday or Tuesday flight, and that's a big if.' He said 'even Indigenous leaders here don't understand it'. Advertisement 'I don't think it's about reconciliation, I think it's more about that the system is broken,' he said. 'The gap is not a gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous per se, it's regional versus non-regional. If you actually compared the two I think you'd find many of the non-Indigenous kids and families have the same disadvantages as Indigenous people in rural or remote communities.' Lord added that son's girlfriend was Indigenous and 'the first time this happened, she got on one flight and he had to get on the other'. 7 'I don't think it's about reconciliation, I think it's more about that the system is broken,' Lord said. Robbie Katter MP/Facebook Advertisement Fordham said it was 'absolutely mad'. 'Just put the kids on the same damn plane,' he said. A spokeswoman for Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek told the matter was being reviewed. 'The ABSTUDY program was introduced in 1969 by Liberal National Prime Minister John Gorton to help Indigenous students from very remote communities get access to education,' she said. 7 A spokeswoman for Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek told the matter was being reviewed. Getty Images 'Charter flights are only used where it is the cheapest or most cost effective alternative, from very remote communities. The allocation of spare seats is a matter for the charter company. The government agrees that empty seats should be made available for other students or community members to purchase where safe and practical to do so. The Minister will request updated advice from her department on this issue to ensure charter fees reflect value for money.' The Department of Finance, which manages all the whole of the Australian government travel contract, has previously clarified that CTM has no exclusive agreements with charter companies and will choose charter providers for the ABSTUDY program based on the needs of ABSTUDY travelers. 'CTM has encouraged competition through the expansion of charters available to be booked for the government, including the ABSTUDY program,' a spokeswoman for the department told Cairns Post last year. 'They have also recently included an additional 12 new charter service providers to the program, including two Indigenous businesses.'
