Naples, Faro and Copenhagen were among the 20 casualties on Saturday morning. By midday, it was the turn of Bordeaux, Basel and others. These were among the easyJet flights cancelled at Gatwick on Saturday. By mid-afternoon, Britain’s largest budget airline had grounded 34 arrivals and departures from its main base – representing around 6,000 passengers. The reason, easyJet said: “Air traffic control restrictions across Europe due to thunderstorms and capacity constraints causing disruption.”
Friday – what would become the busiest day in Europe’s skies since Covid – was even worse. In addition to some overheated weather in central and southeastern Europe and a technical problem at the main air traffic control center in Maastricht, all arrivals and departures at Gatwick were suspended for 50 minutes on Friday afternoon. The cause: a British Airways 777 whose pilots decided to refuse takeoff to Vancouver.
With the plane stuck in the middle of the runway and the airport fire brigade having to attend to overheated brakes, diversions were immediately put in place at the world’s busiest single-runway airport. The Emirates arrival from Dubai was diverted to Brussels, while an incoming BA flight from Malaga was diverted to Heathrow – where it remained due to passenger action. Stanley Johnson, the author and father of a former prime minister, decided he would rather leave than wait for refuelling and the scheduled onward flight to Gatwick.
British Airways and Wizz Air both cancelled around ten flights, but easyJet’s landings at Gatwick dwarfed its rivals: 78, including several long-haul flights to Cyprus, Turkey and the Canary Islands.
Who would be an airline passenger? A week earlier, dozens of flights were diverted or cancelled at Gatwick Airport due to a shortage of staff in the air traffic control tower.
On Sunday morning, it was the turn of a power surge at Manchester Airport to make headlines. For several hours, nothing could leave Terminals 1 and 2 – and incoming planes were soon turned away. Several thousand passengers landed unexpectedly at Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham and even Ostend in Belgium because the gates were all full of delayed planes. Around 20,000 passengers saw their flights to and from Manchester cancelled. Many of those lucky enough to only be delayed landed at their destinations without their luggage. One cruise passenger, Derek Flint, was finally reunited with his luggage five days after flying from Manchester to Barcelona with Jet2, after the suitcases had gone on their own adventure.
My adventure this week seemed to be falling apart before I had even reached Stansted Airport. At 4.30am on Tuesday morning, hundreds of passengers waiting at London Liverpool Street for the first Stansted Express were told that the train would not be reaching Essex Airport due to congested works. Instead, we were told to alight at Bishop’s Stortford and wait for the train behind. Anyone who had actually followed this advice would have arrived at Stansted 40 minutes late, probably enough to ruin their travel plans.
Instead, many of us sprinted to the taxi queue – where I was charged just £65 for the 15-minute journey (which I shared with five other desperate passengers). I walked into the terminal 45 minutes before my flight took off – with the added hurdle of a bike in a bag that I needed to check-in. Self check-in and security couldn’t have gone smoother. I even had time to buy a coffee on the way to gate 59 (so far away I swear it’s in Cambridgeshire) and think about how I would react if, as seemed likely, my bike didn’t make the plane. I didn’t have to worry: upon landing in Limoges, in west-central France, it came out straight away.
In contrast, thousands of British Airways passengers were separated from their bags on Wednesday after BA’s allocation system failed.
Thursday was the unfortunate turn of thousands of passengers at Bristol and Liverpool airports to see their flights cancelled.
We need to talk about summer.
The fundamental problem: little slack in the system. Understandably, the airlines plan their flights based on the fact that most things will go well. They do have some backup, but keeping an aircraft, pilots and cabin crew on standby during peak season means a big ‘opportunity cost’: because demand is so strong, every flight in July and August can make a mint.
Airplanes only generate profit when they are in the air. The problem is that a lack of resilience manifests itself in massive disruptions (and, as a result, huge hotel bills for airlines). Either the authorities have to set a minimum backup level, or we have to get used to cancellations. I suspect it will be the latter. Make sure you know your rights if it all goes wrong.