Increasingly congested airspace and more unpredictable weather have disrupted air travel this summer despite heightened efforts to cut delays and cancellations.
That is according to British Airways head of integrated operations control Richard Treeves, who said: “Airspace has become more congested, partly because of the Ukraine war and partly because of demand, and European airspace is extremely congested – particularly if you’re flying from the UK to Greece, Turkey or Cyprus.”
Treeves told the Business Travel Association (BTA) conference in Gibraltar last week: “Weather is also becoming more unpredictable [and] the weather we’ve seen over the summer has made it a big challenge to operate the schedule we want to.”
More: Agency boss slams airlines for rate of cancellations [not yet published]
But he said: “That is not peculiar to BA. Punctuality in summer in the UK and northern Europe is incredibly difficult because of the weather and restrictions on air traffic.”
An internal email to British Airways staff from chief operating officer René de Groot and chief technical officer Andy Best at the end of last week acknowledged “what has been a difficult summer” due to disruption.
It revealed 42% of BA flights had been disrupted by air traffic control delays this year, up from 24% in 2019, although down on the level of disruption last year.
Treeves disputed a suggestion that BA was performing worse than other carriers, insisting: “We’ve had a huge focus on punctuality and outperformed all other legacy hub carriers [in Europe].”
He pointed out: “We operate more than 850 flights a day and have 100 aircraft in the air at any time. The breadth of our operations means we’re uniquely exposed.”
Treeves told the BTA: “We want to operate at a higher level. We’re not complacent. But ultimately this is a problem we see across the industry.”
He said BA is working “to model the challenges of future summer seasons and trying to predict the arrival times of flights more accurately”, adding: “It may be aircraft have to fly a longer route because the way we want to fly is too congested.
“We’re trying to use technology and work with [air traffic controller] Nats and airport teams to find ways around the airspace challenges.”