Dozens of Gatwick flights cancelled as Covid hits air visitors controllers
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ozens of flights have been cancelled at Gatwick Airport on account of a scarcity of air visitors management employees.
Thousands of passengers confronted delays to flights or cancellations on Sunday and Monday after widespread employees illness on account of Covid.
Data from monitoring web site FlightRadar24 reveals that 64 flights to or from the West Sussex airport had been axed over the previous two days.
EasyJet made up dozens of the flights affected with some passengers going through delays of as much as seven hours.
The airline mentioned it was “extremely disappointed” by the difficulty which noticed eight flights cancelled to and from Belfast. Other flights to or from Edinburgh, Geneva and Paris had been additionally impacted.
An easyJet spokesperson mentioned: “We are extremely disappointed that customers are once again being impacted by this and while this is outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers.
“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the disruption and have notified those on cancelled flights of their options to rebook or receive a refund and are providing hotel accommodation and meals where required.”
A Gatwick spokesperson mentioned: “Due to short notice sickness in the air-traffic control tower including cases of Covid-19, temporary air traffic control restrictions were put in place yesterday. This caused some delays and cancellations by airlines.
“We worked hard to minimise disruption and we apologise for any inconvenience. The air-traffic control tower is fully staffed this morning.”
It comes after the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) management system was hit by a technical glitch in August.
More than 1 / 4 of flights to and from UK airports had been cancelled that day, affecting round 250,000 individuals.
Gatwick is predicted to be affected by strikes this week after Aslef, the commerce union representing practice drivers, mentioned it was taking industrial motion.
The walkout will have an effect on 16 practice working firms together with Southern, owned by Govia Thameslink Railway, which runs the Gatwick Express – a service between London Victoria, Gatwick and Brighton. Aslef members will strike on Saturday and once more on October 4.