IT malfunction causes “serious incident” on Tui flight

An IT glitch caused a Tui flight to take off heavier than expected as female passengers with the title “Miss” were classified as children, an investigation has found.

The flight from Birmingham Airport to the Spanish island of Mallorca with 187 passengers on board was described as a “serious incident” by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

An update to the airline’s reservation system while its planes were grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic resulted in 38 passengers on the flight being assigned the “standard child weight” of 35kg, as opposed to the correct value of 69kg.

This resulted in the freight sheet prepared by the captain to calculate the inputs required for takeoff stating that the Boeing 737 was more than 1,200 kg lighter than it actually was.

Investigators described the error as “a simple error” in an IT system.

It was programmed in an unknown foreign country where the title “Miss” is used for a child and “Ms” is used for an adult woman.

Despite the problem, the thrust used on departure from Birmingham on July 21 last year was only “insignificantly less” than it should have been and the “safe operation of the aircraft was not compromised”, the AAIB said.

The same error led to two more Tui flights taking off from the UK with inaccurate freight lists later in the day.

When the problem was first discovered 11 days earlier, the system was adjusted, but this did not correct the weight entries for the July 21 flights.

The operator then implemented manual controls to ensure that adult females were referred to as “Mrs” in the relevant documentation.

Tui said in a statement: “The health and safety of our customers and crew is always our primary concern.”

“After this individual case, we fixed an error identified in our IT system.

“As the report states, safe flight operations were not at risk.”