Gatwick cancels more than 160 flights because of ATC staff shortages

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Gatwick airport has been forced to cancel more than 160 flights and impose a cap on its operations for the rest of the week because of air traffic control staff shortages.

London’s second-busiest airport on Monday said it would impose a restriction of 800 flights per day for the rest of the week because of sickness and other “staffing constraints” in its control tower.

The airport said it would be forced to cancel 164 flights because of the unusual cap, but said it hoped to avoid last-minute cancellations and delays for passengers as a result.

“This has been a difficult decision but the action we have taken today means our airlines can fly reliable flight programmes,” said Stewart Wingate, Gatwick’s chief executive.

Gatwick subcontracts operations in its control tower to NATS, the UK’s main air traffic manager. NATS said 30 per cent of its staff were unavailable “for a variety of medical reasons”, including Covid-19.

“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,” NATS said.

The air traffic management group has been struggling with staff shortages for much of the summer, and has also been under scrutiny since a technical failure in its systems caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights across the UK during the late August bank holiday.

More than one-quarter of inbound and outbound UK flights were cancelled and many more delayed, after air traffic controllers restricted the number of aircraft arriving at and leaving UK airports because of the glitch.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has called for the dismissal of the head of NATS, Martin Rolfe, while easyJet boss Johan Lundgren has criticised the “persistent” staff shortages that have “let down customers all summer”.

NATS said it was training new controllers “as fast as possible” but it took nine months to train even experienced staff to work at Gatwick because of its complex airspace.

“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,” it said.