London’s Gatwick Airport announced on Monday that it would be forced to cancel more than 160 flights between now and Sunday due to an exceptional shortage of air traffic controllers.
The number of flights will be limited to 800 per day (departing and arriving) until Saturday 1 October, the airport said in a statement. It said the decision had been taken in agreement with NATS, the UK air traffic control authority.
The daily cap will avoid last-minute cancellations and delays for passengers while NATS resolves issues relating to sickness and staffing constraints, the statement added. It explained that 30% of controllers were currently unavailable for various medical reasons, including Covid-19.
“This has been a difficult decision but the action we have taken today means our airlines can fly reliable flight programmes, which gives passengers more certainty that they will not face last-minute cancellations,” said Stewart Wingate, director of London Gatwick, London’s second largest airport after Heathrow.
The difficulties affecting the British air traffic control authority follow a giant system failure at the end of August that led to the cancellation of almost 2,000 flights over two days and numerous delays.
The British Civil Aviation Authority had announced an independent investigation into the wider issues around the system failure and the way NATS responded to the incident.
