“Structural understaffing” rather than Covid illness was to blame for the cancellation of more flights from Gatwick last week, the boss of EasyJet has claimed.
The UK’s second busiest airport imposed a daily cap on flights due to almost a third of air traffic control tower staff being off for medical reasons including Covid.
However, Easyjet chief executive Johan Lundgren disputed the explanation given by National Air Travel Services (Nats) which runs the Gatwick air traffic control tower.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: “A shortage of controllers at Gatwick airport has plagued the travel industry and caused misery to many of our passengers.
“These problems have beset Nats since May. This cannot go on. We need reform of how Nats is regulated to ensure that all its services are robust and resilient so that UK travellers can be confident their flights will take off.
“Essentially, the failure to have enough air traffic controllers means Gatwick’s full schedule of flights cannot operate.
“This chronic problem has been disrupting flights, on average, every three days. Indeed, there have now been 40 days of delays and cancellations since May.”
Around 27 aircraft per hour normally land at Gatwick through the morning at this time of year, he pointed out.
“But these staff shortages means the arrival rate has been at times shrunk to just 12 per hour. That’s an estimated 2,500 passengers affected per hour,” Lundgren said.
“As the largest carrier at Gatwick, EasyJet has been disproportionately affected. Our customers are rightly angry – and I share their immense frustration.
“Last week, Gatwick ordered the cancellation of yet more flights. They declared that Covid sickness is the cause, when clearly it is structural understaffing. Like other airlines whose passengers have been caught up in this, we have had enough.
“And yet the mechanisms to hold air traffic control to account are simply not present or working,” the chief executive of the UK budget airline said.
Lundgren added; “I want to be absolutely clear: I recognise that UK controllers are among the best in the world. My issue is not with them and safety is not in question – it’s the structure and resourcing plans that are letting us, and them, badly down.
“I also want to acknowledge it’s not just the UK that has suffered this year. In spring we saw delays and cancellations when French controllers took strike action in solidarity against pension reforms, which didn’t even impact them because they retire at 58.
“Aviation is critical to the country. Gatwick and Nats need to urgently put a resourcing plan in place to restore resilience to the operation there.
“We want to see a wide-ranging review into how Nats is structured, run and regulated so the systems and processes can be modernised.
“And it is crucial this is done now, to avoid the same issues next summer. After months of delays and cancellations, the UK public deserves better.”
He said it was “completely unacceptable” that hundreds of thousands of passengers saw flights cancelled or delayed this summer because of air traffic control failures.