Chaos struck Gatwick Airport last evening.
Several flights due to leave Gatwick have been cancelled with more than 6,000 passengers likely to have been affected by cancellations.
Thousands of airline passengers have been impacted while facing delays, diverted and cancelled flights due to air traffic control staff shortages at Gatwick airport.
The airport confirmed a short notice staff absence in its ATC tower, managed by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which meant 42 flights were cancelled or diverted with dozens more being heavily delayed on Thursday. It comes just over two weeks after a Nats technical glitch caused widespread disruption at airports across the UK. On 28th August 2023, a bank holiday Monday, more than 2,000 flights were cancelled as the Nats air-traffic control system for the entire UK stopped working for several hours, due to a UK air traffic system failure, leaving thousands of holidaymakers stranded overseas for several days
Several flights due to land at the Sussex airport have been diverted to other airports as far away as Cardiff, while easyJet has axed at least a dozen departures and arrivals last night.
According to Europe’s aviation agency, Eurocontrol, Pilots were being warned of ‘heavy delays all evening’ owing to the problem.
The transport hub in West Sussex has apologised to those who have been affected by the temporary air traffic control restrictions enforced on Thursday evening leading to 22 flights being cancelled with others due to land at Gatwick Airport being diverted to other airports.
The airport has said that flights have been cancelled, delayed and rerouted at Gatwick due to short-notice staff absences in the air traffic control team with EasyJet and TUI among the airlines diverted this evening.
The Independent reports that among the diversions was a flight from the Faroe Islands which was forced to land at Cardiff Airport, while a flight from Frankfurt was diverted to Heathrow with the return leg to Germany being cancelled.
Passengers who flew from Madrid with Air Europa landed at Stansted, as did those on a Ryanair flight from Dublin while Tui Airways from Corfu and Crete in Greece also landed in Stansted, while a flight from Samos was diverted to Bournemouth.
EasyJet, Gatwick’s biggest airline, sent four flights to Luton : from Crete and fellow Greek island, Mykonos as well as Faro and Belfast.
Even though the airlines are not responsible for the shortage of air control staff at Gatwick Airport, they should find alternative flights for stranded passengers, as well as hotels and meals where necessary.
New air traffic controllers are understood to have been recruited since last summer with others due to start after completing their training in line with the agreed plan when the contract was taken over by Nats last October.
Passengers stated on social media that their flights had been diverted to other UK airports including Bournemouth, London Stansted and Heathrow.
Several passengers voiced their frustrations on X (formely Twitter). Dax Patel who was one, wrote : ‘Landed at Heathrow airport, supposed to go Gatwick, passengers sitting in flight from last 1 hour, they don’t provide any information, no information at airports too, not even customer care, the worst service.’ Another who was affected wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Currently on the runway at Athens airport delayed due to air traffic control restrictions at your airport. (This is what easyJet are telling us!) I will miss my train connection.”
Another wrote : “It is now four hours later and our flight from Samos has been diverted to Bournemouth.”
In a message on X in response to a customer, Gatwick said it had not been informed of any further delays on Friday.
Rory Boland, of consumer group Which? said it was unacceptable that Gatwick passengers have been hit so soon after the recent chaos by further air traffic control problems.
He said that this was not an issue caused by airlines, but they should meet their legal obligations to look after passengers and provide them with support during delays and help with refunds and rerouting including with other carriers if necessary.
Last month, figures showed that passenger numbers at Gatwick soared to 19 million during the first six months of the year, although air traffic control strikes across Europe contributed to an increase in delays.
Demand for travel resulted in 41% more passengers travelling through the airport between January and June compared with 2022 – when Covid restrictions were still in place – Gatwick said.
An inquiry has been opened by The Civil Aviation Authority into the meltdown that caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The technical report from Nats confirmed that a single flight plan with confusing data brought its bespoke software system to a halt.
