London: In the wake of the fresh COVID outbreak, London’s Gatwick Airport, the second-busiest in the city, has had to cancel numerous flights due to staffing shortages in its air traffic control division. Reports said that more than 40 flights were cancelled over the past weekend. In response to this situation, the airport’s CEO, Stewart Wingate, announced that they will be implementing restrictions on the number of planes using its runway for the remainder of the week.
The airport has enforced a daily limit of 800 flights, encompassing both departures and arrivals, which will remain in place until the upcoming Sunday. This measure is aimed at preventing last-minute flight cancellations and delays for passengers, allowing the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) to return to its regular operations, as reported by the airport.
The most significant impact is expected on Friday, September 29, with 33 departures affected by these limitations. The airport explained that approximately 30% of the staff within the air traffic control division are currently off duty due to various reasons, including illnesses related to COVID-19, as stated in an official statement.
NATS expressed its apologies to passengers and clarified that a range of medical issues has made it challenging to maintain the usual traffic flows in and out of Gatwick Airport.
Issuing a statement, NATS said, ”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. With 30 percent 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.”
