London Gatwick has announced in the last few hours that it will be capping flight movements due to the continued shortage of air traffic control (ATC) staff.
It is understood that operations will be limited to 800 flights per day, with this meaning both departure and arrival flights.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
London Gatwick Caps Flight Numbers Due to ATC Shortages…
Commenting on this was Stewart Wingate, the CEO of London Gatwick Airport:
“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”.
Before the limit was put in place, the movements expected for this week were as follows:
- Tuesday- 800 movements
- Weds – 829 movements
- Thursday – 840 movements
- Friday –865 movements
- Saturday – 800 movements
- Sunday – 830 movements
Around 30% of NATS Tower Staff are currently unavailable for several medical reasons, one of them includes the COVID-19 virus.
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NATS’ Full Statement on The Movement Cap…
NATS have also commented, giving the following lengthy statement on this:
“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 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 9 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.”
This is a developing story. Further updates on the ATC shortages to come in due course.
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