A daily cap on flights at Gatwick has been imposed due to almost a third of air traffic control tower staff being off for medical reasons including Covid.
The airport will be limited to 800 flights a day, affecting thousands of passengers on 164 flights, with restrictions remaining in place until Sunday (October 1).
The third limit on flights at Gatwick this month is designed to prevent delays and last-minute cancellations for passengers.
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The 800 flights a day restriction compares with 829 originally scheduled for to tomorrow, 840 on Thursday, 865 on Friday and 830 on Sunday.
The airport confirmed that 30% of National Air Traffic Service (Nats) control tower staff “are currently unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid”.
The decision to implement a temporary limit on daily flight movements – take offs and landings – was made alongside Nats, which runs the Gatwick air traffic control tower.
The daily cap “will prevent last-minute cancellations and delays for passengers while Nats work through challenges driven by sickness and staffing constraints,” according to the airport.
Check flight status
Passengers were advised to check the status of their flights directly with their airlines, “who we’ve been closely working with at this time”.
Advantage Travel Partnership chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said posted on X/Twitter: “Latest measures by Nats causes less misery for passengers by avoiding waste minute cancellations, but pretty miserable nevertheless for everyone who’s planned Gatwick flight has been affected.”
Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate said on Monday: “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.”
Johan Lundgren, chief executive of EasyJet, the largest airline based at Gatwick, said: “While it is regrettable that a temporary limit on capacity at Gatwick airport is required, we believe that it is the right action by the airport so on-the-day cancellations and delays can be avoided.
“Gatwick airport and Nats now need to work on longer term plan so the resilience of air-traffic control at Gatwick is improved and fit for purpose.
“Our call for a more wide-ranging review of Nats remains so the broader issues can be examined so it can deliver robust services to passengers now and in the future.”
A Nats spokesperson said: “We have worked very closely with Gatwick airport throughout.
“Given the levels of sickness we have experienced over the last few weeks we believe it is the responsible thing to do to limit the number of flights this week in order to reduce the risk of daily disruption to passengers using the airport.
We have trained as many ATCOs (air traffic control officers) as possible this year in the Gatwick tower and have safely managed over 180,000 flights so far.
“However, with 30% of tower staff unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid, we cannot manage the number of flights that were originally planned for this week.
“Our operational resilience in the tower will improve as our staff return to work and we move out of the summer schedule, which is particularly busy at Gatwick.
“We continue to train additional air traffic controllers and expect another group to qualify to work in the tower over coming months, ready for next summer.
“Even an experienced air traffic controller takes at least nine months to qualify at Gatwick and very few are able to do so, as Gatwick is such a busy and complex air traffic environment.
“We will continue to recruit and train air traffic controllers at Gatwick a fast as possible to ensure we return to a fully resilient operation as soon as we can.”
A Ryanair spokesperson called for Nats’ chief executive, Martin Rolfe, to step down, adding: “We call on the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] to immediately intervene and protect passengers from this ongoing UK ATC shambles.”
The spokesperson added: “It is unacceptable that Nats are still not adequately staffing UK ATC with thousands of passengers unnecessarily suffering delays.
“Ryanair pays Nats almost €100 million pa for an ATC service that is repeatedly short staffed and which, on August 28, collapsed completely causing the cancellation of over 2,000 flights.
“This shambles has been followed with more flight disruptions at Gatwick Airport on six separate occasions over the past four weeks and now Gatwick Airport is imposing a daily cap of 800 flights until October and asking airlines to cancel flights, which Ryanair will not be doing.”
‘Completely unreasonable’
Which? Travel editor Rory Boland described the situation as “completely unreasonable” with passengers facing yet more disruption to their travel plans.
“While customers should be booked on alternate flights as soon as possible and given overnight accommodation when required, Which? has repeatedly documented that this duty of care is ignored by many airlines,” he said.
“Consumers are paying record amounts of money for flights they can no longer trust will go ahead.”
Gatwick and air traffic control body Nats last week declined to say whether the often weekly imposition of air traffic restrictions at the airport due to a shortage of air traffic controllers will end before next summer.
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