Tag: NATS

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Gatwick cancels flights due to air traffic control staff shortages

'Suckers!'

Flights at Gatwick Airport were cancelled, delayed or diverted at short notice on Thursday 14th September 2023 due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Gatwick confirmed some cancellations, while the website FlightRadar24 said hundreds of flights in and out of the airport were delayed.

The National Air Traffic Services (Nats) apologised for its staffing shortages.

Gatwick Airport said it expected a normal service on Friday, 15th September 2023.

The disruption comes just over two weeks after a technical issue at Nats that led to 2,000 flights being cancelled across the UK.

EasyJet expressed frustration at Thursday’s delays and cancellations, while Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary called on Nats’ boss to resign.

Mr O’Leary reportedly said: ‘It is unacceptable that more flights and hundreds of passengers are suffering delays to/from Gatwick Airport due to Nats CEO, Martin Rolfe’s blatant failure to adequately staff UK ATC’.

‘Airlines are paying millions of pounds to Nats each and every year and should not have to see their passengers suffer avoidable delays due to UK ATC staff shortages’.

Update

Gatwick Airport said it was ‘operating as normal’ on Friday after a shortage of air traffic controllers caused disruption to flights overnight on Thursday, 14th September 2023.

'Suckers!'
‘Frequent flyers… suckers!’
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Bank Holiday UK Air traffic control failure creates airport travel chaos

Flight delay

An apparent ‘technical issue’ halts flights to and from UK as the UK National Air Traffic Services control system (NATS) goes offline!

Holidaymakers are stuck all over the UK and abroad, with the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) saying it had applied restrictions to traffic flow. Passengers have been advised to check if their flight has been affected on one of the biggest UK travel days of the year.

National Air Traffic System

NATS reportedly apologised for the fault just after midday on bank holiday Monday 28th August 2023, before it announced at 15:15 BST that it had identified and remedied the issue that was affecting its ‘ability to automatically process flight plans’. We don’t yet know what caused the failure. NATS added that engineers would be monitoring the system’s performance as it returns to normal.

NATS had earlier stressed that ‘UK airspace was not closed, we have had to apply air traffic flow restrictions which ensures we can maintain safety’.

Several airports across the UK, and most airlines have all warned passengers of delays or cancellations to flights.

How fragile are the infrastructures systems in the UK?

Airport Stays
‘Why travel when you can stay at the airport free of charge’!?- ‘It wasn’t that long ago UK airports were brought to a standstill through strikes and border control issues. C’mon UK Plc… get your act together’!