The UK was hit by air travel chaos on Friday when air traffic control problems resulted in delays and cancellations. However, even though many businesses were affected, it may be difficult to claim under their business interruption (BI) policies, experts have warned.
Flights at all major UK airports were subject to severe delays, while some were cancelled.
The problems stemmed from the air traffic control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and were said to have been caused by a computer "glitch".
On Friday afternoon, London Luton Airport spokesman Ian Briggs explained why the problems were continuing for so long: "Even though operations at Swanwick are resuming there are new problems at a centre in Brussels which allocates air slots to the UK."
He added that this was a coincidence, and not a result of the problems at Swanwick.
As the problems fell on the same day there was a substantial backlog of flights to get through when the systems were up again, meaning that services did not return to normal until Saturday.
Due to the incident being particularly uncommon - in that two separate centres suffered problems on the same day - the possible claims for business interruption could be unusually high.
However, Deloitte & Touche senior manager Heather Parkinson warned: "This situation is typical of incidents which cause utter chaos but which are not necessarily covered by business interruption insurance.
"Many parties may suffer losses as a result - the airlines may lose ticket sales, airport shops might lose income if passengers do not turn up at the airport and ultimately, of course, companies paying for staff to fly on flights which are cancelled may lose business from their customers.
"For payment to be made for losses of profit under the standard business interruption policy, damage must have been caused to the insured's own property by an insured peril.
"This will not apply to the airlines and concessions for example. Unless specific contingency cover has been arranged it is difficult to see how the businesses involved will be able to make claims under their own policies."
