Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
I don't know a lot about it, but it's a multi-layer control process, similar to the police, to cascade decisions fast from the top of the multiple companies and agencies down to operational staff. So if someone in LHR ATC says "we need to cut 40% of flights now", there's a bigwig on the call who can say yes to that, and someone from BA who gulps and reaches for the appropriate spreadsheet.
So basically we have about 3 hours data’s loaded into the system, beyond that we are bugg**ed. the downside of systemic driven systems is when they fail it goes Tit* up and usually nobody can fix it , we’ll particularly at a weekend or bank holiday. Welcome to low cost flying!