Airline passengers will benefit from tougher enforcement of consumer protection laws following an inquiry into the August 2023 air traffic control meltdown, transport secretary Louise Haigh has said.

She said she wants to ensure “all passengers feel confident when they fly”.

More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on 28 August last year after National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.

An investigation into what happened found that a number of travellers waited “many weeks, and in some cases months” for airlines to refund their expenses. It recommended that the regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), is given the power to “take consumer enforcement action” without going through the courts. This could include the ability to issue fines, which would align it with regulators in some other sectors.

Haigh said: “The Nats IT failure last year was an unprecedented event that we all hope never happens again, so I welcome the final report and its recommendations to strengthen the sector and restore passenger confidence.

“I’ve said before that I will be the passenger-in-chief and my priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly. That’s why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible.”

The CAA’s inability to issue fines means it is required to take airlines to court if they fail to respond to enforcement action, which means short-term resolutions are unlikely.

Under the Conservative government, in June last year the Department for Transport set out plans to give the CAA “stronger enforcement powers”, but no legislation on the issue was introduced.

A total of 34 recommendations were made by the inquiry into the August 2023 failure, which was set up by the CAA and led by Jeff Halliwell, who has served as a chief executive and non-executive director in roles across the private and public sector.

The final report said Nats should give earlier notice to airlines and airports of possible disruption, and review its contingency arrangements. Airlines and airports should review the “adequacy” of the support available to passengers during significant disruption, particularly those who are vulnerable or travelling with children, according to the document.

Other recommendations include the CAA reviewing how Nats’ work is incentivised.

Halliwell said: “The incident on 28 August 2023 represented a major failure on the part of the air traffic control system, which caused considerable distress to over 700,000 aviation passengers, and resulted in substantial costs to airlines and airports.”

“Our report sets out a number of recommendations aimed at improving Nats’ operations and, even more importantly, ways in which the aviation sector as a whole should work together more closely to ensure that, if something like this does ever happen again, passengers are better looked after.”

The CAA’s chief executive, Rob Bishton, said: “This final report gets to the heart of what went wrong in August 2023 and sets out a number of recommendations that are sector-wide in their scope. It is vital that we learn the lessons from any major incident such as this.”