Over the past few days, Gatwick Airport has been suffering from cancellations and delays due to staff shortages.
Well, it seems action is coming – although for some people or airlines, it will involve further cancellations.
The airport has taken firm action along with NATS which operates the London Gatwick air traffic control tower. The action will restrict movements and will be limited to 800 flights a day.
This means both departure and arrival flights. The restrictions start today and will remain in place until Sunday, 1 October.
The daily cap will prevent last-minute cancellations and delays for passengers while NATS work through challenges driven by sickness and staffing constraints.
Gatwick Airport had been operating between 800 to 865 movements in the past week as it attempted to stabilise operations, due to the availability of NATS staff – with 30% of them out of action for a variety of medical reasons including COVID.
Passengers are advised to check the status of their flights directly with their airlines.
In Quotes
Stewart Wingate, CEO of London Gatwick, said:
“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.
“We are working closely with NATS to build resilience in the control tower, and this decision means we can prevent as much disruptions as possible.
“London Gatwick would like to apologise to any passengers who have been impacted by these restrictions.”
However, some are not happy
It’ll be no surprise that Ryanair is not happy with the situation – with Gatwick being one of their London hubs, blaming NATS for mismanagement and ATC staff shortages.
The airline is insisting it will not be cancelling any flights to/from Gatwick Airport due to NATS’s self-inflicted ongoing staff shortages.
Ryanair has called on NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, to fix UK ATC staff shortages or immediately resign and hand over to someone who is fit for the job of managing an ATC organisation with adequate resourcing and resilience to provide a service for passengers travelling to/from the UK without disruption which is entirely down to poor planning and mismanagement by NATS.
A Ryanair spokesperson said:
“It is unacceptable that airlines have been asked to cancel flights to/from Gatwick Airport for the next six days (until 2 Oct) as a result of NATS’s failure to adequately staff UK ATC. It is the most basic requirement to hire and train adequate staff numbers including standby coverage. NATS has been a shambles for years, causing unnecessary disruptions at UK airports including Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester, and now Gatwick Airport for the past four weeks including the complete system meltdown on Mon 28 Aug, which brought UK aviation to its knees – a mess that has still not been explained.
It is clear that NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe has taken no action to resolve these ATC staff shortages and should now do the right thing and step down as NATS CEO so that someone competent can do the job. We call on the CAA to immediately intervene and protect passengers from this ongoing UK ATC shambles.”
Attempting to stabilise the timetable
Short-notice cancellations are perhaps the worst sort – when you’re on your way to the airport. Whilst cancellations are never good, having the ability to plan around them will help airlines and customers, as the airport struggles to set itself back to normal operation.
Sadly, it is not just a case of training talent and deploying it – it takes something that NATS hasn’t got, time.
However, there are questions to be answered in terms of how NATS could let its service degenerate down the state it’s in – especially after the August incident which slowed Air Traffic to a crawl in the United Kingdom.
Depending on how winter goes, could well lead to a lot more questions being asked.
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