THE Swanwick-based National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has pledged to compensate its customers  following a major technical fault.

More than 10,000 people in Heathrow alone were left in limbo after a failure at the £600m centre brought flight chaos across the country.

Now the company has ruled there will be a “financial consequence” for the incident.

It follows senior NATS staff appearing in front of politicians on the House of Commons Transport Committee to answer questions on last Friday’s failure, which the firm is blaming on a computer glitch.

A statement released by the company said: “Under the company’s regulatory performance regime, customers will receive a rebate on charges in the future. The amount is being calculated and will be notified to customers in due course.”

The failure caused 16,000 minutes of delays and closed runways at Heathrow and Gatwick.

About 70 flights at Heathrow were cancelled last Friday night and a further 38 flights early on Saturday after the disruption. It followed a telephone failure at the Swanwick centre in December last year which caused 126,000 minutes of delays.