The country’s air traffic controller says its chief executive misspoke, but did not mislead the public, when he pointed to another company after a major outage.
A glitch last month on services between New Zealand and Australia left five planes circling above Wellington and four others unable to take off.
At the time, Airways said it was caused by flight data not transferring from one system to another.
Chief executive James Young said in an interview on Morning Report that Airways was in talks with an external software provider about the fault.
Airways now says the agency itself maintained the software and had full responsibility, and its original maker has had no involvement in more than 20 years.
“The Airways Oceanic platform is one of the very few systems that Airways purchased but maintains with no input from the original vendor,” it said in a statement.
Airways had extensively developed the software itself since taking it over, it said.
“The original vendor has had no involvement for more than two decades, and at no point have we suggested they were responsible for the disruption on August 16.”
The agency said its chief executive spoke before its full relationship with the software vendor was clear.
“He misspoke in suggesting there had been contact with the vendor, and we acknowledge this error,” Airways said.
“While he misspoke in one instance, this does not constitute misleading the public.”
Airways said it would not be naming the software provider because it was not clear what contractual confidentiality agreements might still exist.
rnz.co.nz
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