The serious delay in re-starting the computer would prompt a major investigation within the National Air Traffic Service.

BBC: Computer crash delays 6,000 passengers

For example, the National Air Traffic Service, which has presided over one of the worst computer-procurement failures at its much-delayed Swanwick control centre, is outside parliamentary audit.

ECONOMIST: Government

The National Air Traffic Service has previously said there were 200 flights through British airspace in the past five years by the CIA planes associated by campaigners with rendition.

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | 'Rendition flights' landed in UK

The UK's National Air Traffic Service (Nats) said trans-Atlantic flights would be able to operate to and from the re-opened airspace, but stressed this did not mean all such flights would resume.

BBC: Volcanic ash: Flight chaos to continue into weekend

This board of private citizens will oversee air traffic operations and budgets within the FAA, and will be expected to develop "tools and incentives" for the FAA bureaucracy to provide better, more customer-driven air traffic service.

CNN: graphic

"To us and our people, it's extremely significant, " said Shane Cordes, CEO of Midwest Air Traffic Control Service, which provides controllers to towers in about 23 states in the East, Northeast, Great Lakes and central regions of the United States.

CNN: FAA begins process to close 168 towers on April 1

Like many projects in air-travel modernization, there's a chicken-and-egg question: Should airlines spend money on equipment before air-traffic control agencies prove they can work with it, or should air-traffic control service providers spend first and then wait for airlines to catch up?

WSJ: Texting While Flying: Help for Pilots

He can see her reflection in the bathroom mirror, the headset wrapped around her ear as if she were an air-traffic controller or a Secret Service agent.

NEWYORKER: Brother on Sunday

In the year since the biggest disruption to European air traffic since World War II, KLM has defined new job roles, reorganized its marketing and service functions to support social media and launched a Social Media Hub to handle all incoming requests.

FORBES: Written by Alex Dayon