Gatwick is is experiencing an operations “meltdown every night” due to a shortage of air traffic control staff, sources claim.
A senior aviation industry source told The Times many airlines are frustrated that the West Sussex airport – the second busiest in the UK – does not have the staffing resources to cope with the current flight schedule.
“Since the start of the summer we’ve seen repeated issues in terms of air traffic control restrictions coming into Gatwick,” said the source.
“The airport is putting restrictions on movements per hour, below its declared capacity, because of a shortage of air traffic controllers in the approach control function.”
They went on to say that, while Gatwick typically handles around 52 “movements” in an hour – including departures and arrivals – at some points last week this number had been reduced to 22 an hour.
“The days tend to start reasonably well. But as each flight does a rotation the accumulated delays are getting worse and worse,” the source continued.
“By the end of the day it can be the case that airlines are forced to cancel the last flight of the day, either because the crew have gone out of working hours or because its arrival airport will be closed by the time it comes to landing.”
Gatwick has suffered flight delays and diversions in recent weeks, as well as mass cancellations from two of its main airlines, easyJet and British Airways.
Data released by Eurocontrol last week showed that flight delays in Europe had reached almost 100,000 minutes in the week to 4 June; meanwhile, the aviation body has predicted that aviation in Europe will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.
A source at Gatwick told The Times that air traffic control issues in other European countries were disrupting operations at the airport – with Germany and France two of the countries causing more ATC delays than the UK.
A Gatwick Airport spokesperson denied that air traffic control staff shortages had caused daily problems at the airport in recent weeks, adding that a wider range of factors had contributed.
The spokesperson said: “Sickness among air traffic control staff in the airport’s control tower has been an issue on just a couple of evenings recently but these have not been the cause of any delays outside of these isolated incidents.”
