- Are you affected? Email emily.davies@mailonline.co.uk
Thousands of holidaymakers faced massive travel disruption this morning after dozens of flights were cancelled at London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports.
Two of the UK’s busiest airports are in chaos today after EasyJet grounded 32 flights at Gatwick.
British Airways has also cancelled the same number of flights from Heathrow.
This is due to air traffic control problems and bad weather across Europe, leaving 10,000 passengers in uncertainty.
There are flights to and from Rome, Barcelona, Lanzarote, Budapest, Venice, Belfast International and Edinburgh.
Ryanair did not cancel any flights, but did publish a statement on its website apologizing for the delays, which were caused by “repeated air traffic control staff shortages.”
It reads: ‘Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, apologised to its passengers on Monday 8 July for the excessive delays caused today, Monday 8 July, due to the shortage of European ATC staff and which are affecting all European airlines.
‘ATC services, which were unaffected by strikes at French ATC this summer, continue to underperform (despite the number of flights remaining five percent below 2019 levels) with repeated ‘staff shortages’.
‘On Mon 8 Jul, 21% of Ryanair’s first departing flights (134 out of 579 aircraft) were delayed due to ATC ‘staff shortages’. These repeated flight delays due to ATC mismanagement are unacceptable.
‘We apologise to our passengers for the repeated delays to ATC flights. These are very unfortunate but are beyond Ryanair’s control.’
The incident comes after a British Airways plane was struck by lightning while landing at Heathrow Airport on Sunday afternoon.
Passengers on board flight BA919 from Stuttgart to Heathrow – some of whom were returning from matches at the 2024 European Championship in Germany – have spoken of their “shock” after the dramatic incident which forced the crew to divert to Gatwick.
The plane departed Germany just after 1pm local time (12pm BST) and was due to land at Heathrow at 1.40pm.
However, bad weather forced the pilots to divert to Gatwick, where the passengers arrived at around 2pm before being taken to Heathrow.
One passenger, Jeco, told The Sun: ‘The crew were amazing when our flight was struck by lightning on approach to Heathrow. It was shocking. The flight had to divert to Gatwick.’
Another man, whose son and grandson were on board, described it as a “flight from hell” after passengers were delayed in Stuttgart by overheated brakes before being diverted in the UK because of lightning.
Passenger Robert Rossall, who was returning from a trip to Germany for the European Championships, praised the response of the captain and his crew, telling MailOnline: ‘The captain decided to land at a safer airport given the circumstances and the lightning strike.
‘Once on the tarmac he was informative and even walked the length of the plane to talk to all the passengers. The cabin crew passed around bottles of water and were calming. [It was] ‘Handled very professionally.’
A map of the flight path shows the plane following a steady course before suddenly forming a circle and zigzagging away from Heathrow.
A British Airways spokesman said: ‘BA919 diverted to Gatwick earlier this afternoon due to weather conditions in the region.
‘The flight landed just before 2pm. Customers were being driven from Gatwick to Heathrow.’
Lightning strikes on flights are common and usually harmless. According to experts, most planes are struck by lightning once or twice a year.