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Gatwick airport capping flight numbers this week due to ATC shortage

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London Gatwick airport has announced that it is capping flights this week as it deals with a shortage of air traffic controllers.

This is separate to the long-running ATC issues in Europe this summer, which have been running havoc with Gatwick’s operations.

In addition to NATS, which manages the airspace above the UK, individual airports also have their own dedicated ATC controllers managing aircraft as they arrive and depart. This is often, but not always, operated by NATS, with airports able to tender this out themselves.

Gatwick airport capping flight numbers this week due to ATC shortage

At Gatwick, this was contracted out to German air traffic control group DFS in 2016. The contract was initially due to run for a ten-year period but returned to NATS in October 2022 for reasons that are unclear.

NATS at Gatwick is now facing an acute staff shortage due to widespread illness, including a covid outbreak, which has led to 30% of their staff being unavailable this week. According to NATS, they “cannot manage the number of flights that were originally planned for this week.”

Gatwick and NATS have come to an agreement to cap flights to 400 per day (800 movements, with each movement a landing or take-off) until Sunday.

Gatwick airport capping flight numbers this week due to ATC shortage

This is a reduction of 164 movements across the whole week, with Friday facing the highest cuts with a reduction of 64 movements (32 flights).

The cancellations are being spread across airlines, likely in proportion to their operations, so easyJet will be most affected. Gatwick is likely to work with the airlines to identify flights which are less busy or where passengers can be easily accommodated on another flight.

Unfortunately, training air traffic controllers takes a very long time. According to Gatwick,

“Even an experienced air traffic controller takes at least nine months to qualify at Gatwick and very few are able to do so, as Gatwick is such a busy and complex air traffic environment.”

Let’s hope they get a head start on recruiting for next summer then!

Category

General

Comments (33)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Dubious says:
    27 Sep27 September 04:32

    Oh dear, that is not good.

    It is shame that the return of the service back to NATS hasn’t been a smooth success. What I do find funny with the contract changes is that the air traffic controller staff are often the same people in the same role (until they retire) just with different overheads.

    There is also an interesting story behind the original contract loss to DFS in 2016 which might have some relation to the early towel throwing.

  • Nick says:
    27 Sep27 September 06:24

    Covid is back with a vengeance. It’s rife, causing huge numbers of lost work days and with very little slack in any industry now to cover. The worst kind of freshers flu this year.

    • Ryan says:
      27 Sep27 September 09:39

      “With a vengeance” you realise that at worst it’s a cold…

      How many times in the past did a cold stop people from going to work / causing news? Never…

      • flyforfun says:
        27 Sep27 September 12:10

        Different types of colds. I haven’t been in to the office for 2 weeks with what I have. First a runny nose for a week and now a chest infection. I should be resting, but continuing to work from home, not infecting my colleagues. If it wasn’t for Teams et al, I would be watching day time TV. Many aren’t so fortunate as me and plod along infecting everyone.

      • Nick says:
        27 Sep27 September 12:12

        Different people react to it differently. I had it recently and it wiped me out completely for 3 days, and another 3 to recover vaguely back to normal (just as it did last time). If you experience it as just a quiet cold, good for you.

        • Kathy M says:
          27 Sep27 September 14:58

          With my last Covid bout I was so nasally congested that no one could understand my speech. I was also deaf, and had severe conjunctivitis. I would not like someone in that state in charge of my flight.

  • WARD says:
    27 Sep27 September 06:39

    Take a controller from another airport. LGW is hardly LHR or ORD. There’s one runway, they leave at one end and arrive at the other end. The weather is fine. What a joke.

    • Graham says:
      27 Sep27 September 08:09

      You’ve clearly no idea what you are talking about. Can a pilot jump out of a 737 and fly a 747? They both have wings, wheels and engines. It takes around 9 months to cross train from another airport and probably 18-24 as a new controller. Think that’s bad, it takes around 36 months to train at an ATC centre, crazy as they are just boxes of airspace. The radar contact enters on one side and leaves on the other, all you have to do is stop the blips banging into each other, anyone could do it surely?

    • SammyJ says:
      27 Sep27 September 10:39

      Two things wring with that:

      1. It’s actually incredibly difficult – each airport has complex procedures that can take many months to become familiar with and examined on, even for the most skilled and experienced ATCO. In many ways the bigger the airport, the more division of labour and the less complicated each individual task becomes. Smaller airports with greater variation of traffic and single-manned positions can be more complex than sausage-factories.

      2. Which other airport do you suggest they poach controllers from? Every airport is short-staffed right now, and there aren’t anywhere near enough students coming through the colleges. The airports also have training queues because there aren’t enough unit training instructors, and the units can’t send more people in OJTI courses to become instructors because they can’t release them from their operational positions to go in courses (which are few and far between, as there aren’t enough ATC college instructors either).

      The whole ATC staff situation is slowly imploding, and not just in the UK.

    • manorgate says:
      27 Sep27 September 11:03

      Long time lurker and avid headforpoints viewer…..Sorry Ward…don’t know if you’re trolling (probably are)….but LGW is one of the busiest single runway ops in the world….

      Furthermore….As they state….it takes 9 months to train and validate (practical and verbal question exam..think of your driving test theory test…then multiply by 10). The job is highly regulated, highly scrutinised and ultimately highly accountable to the point of life changing criminal charges if you get things wrong….

      This process happens every time someone moves from one unit to another. At dual Tower/Radar units, this process can take around 18 months to 2 years to recruit, train and validate. There’s a global shortage of ATCOs…fact…it’s been a long time coming COVID, retirements, burn out etc…management, HR et all in ANSPs have not fully grasped this fact.

      Hence the shit show that is now developing….However if you are happy for someone to “jump in” and sort it then fine you can be the only one on that aircraft…it’s akin to me letting my 12 year old jump in our car and drive the M25 during rush hour!

      PS…I’ve been in the ATCO game for 22 years…hence my response!

      Have a good day!

      • Nick says:
        27 Sep27 September 12:16

        @Ward it’s actually easier to be a controller at busy airports such as ORD than LGW. The latter is genuinely a spectacular operation, I’ve always been hugely impressed with how they optimise use of their single runway. If you took a controller from a different airport and they lost just a few seconds per movement because they weren’t experienced in how LGW works the whole operation would fall apart very quickly.

      • SammyJ says:
        27 Sep27 September 12:37

        @manorgate… course 106 here!

        • manorgate says:
          27 Sep27 September 12:53

          Ha Ha…nice one….We get everywhere 😉 ….got to defend those on the coal face!

      • T says:
        27 Sep27 September 14:22

        Thank you for your insight, and post! But when you know that introducing, teaching, training, qualifying, etc takes so much time, why not contemplate this well in advance, knowing that Brexit does not go away, that Covid, flu, will be worse in winter. Seems to me that poorforward thinking,planning skills of senior management? Any contingency planning apart from cutting flights?
        Thank again!

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      27 Sep27 September 13:15

      Well I’m glad you’re not in charge of ATC though if you were I’d be very worried with that sort of comment.

      You could say the same about train drivers but you’d also be 100% wrong.

  • mkcol says:
    27 Sep27 September 06:42

    It’s a shame they’ve not published the list of affected flights.
    Thankfully Saturday is apparently untouched as I’m going to BBC.

    • mkcol says:
      27 Sep27 September 06:42

      *BVC damned autocorrect!

      • Gordon says:
        27 Sep27 September 07:04

        Have you got a new phone? I’ve just received the 15 pro plus, and it’s frustrating that its got to learn niche words again!

        • Birdy says:
          27 Sep27 September 07:19

          I’m flying easyJet back to Gatwick from Lanzarote today. I got a text yesterday saying there is a change to a smaller plane and offering €500 to take a different flight. I moved to a flight 1 hr 15 later and filled in the form to claim €500.

          • Lady London says:
            27 Sep27 September 10:29

            This is how it should be done 🙂 . A prompt offer to passengers from the airline as soon as conditions change with an incentive for those customers who can promptly accept.

            So much less stress for everyone and above all honest, efficient action by the airline.

        • lumma says:
          27 Sep27 September 09:40

          Do iPhones learn swearwords yet? It was the biggest benefit of switching to android not autocorrecting to “ducking”

          • Rhys says:
            27 Sep27 September 09:42

            iOS17 is supposed to learn new words better…

            I always just added them to the autocorrect dictionary to avoid this!

          • Gordon says:
            27 Sep27 September 12:08

            Yes they have just recently. Ducking is a thing of the past now on an iPhone.

  • Gordon says:
    27 Sep27 September 07:00

    Saw this on a news article a couple of days ago! Not good for pax stuck in the middle!

  • Ane says:
    27 Sep27 September 07:15

    There was a comment in the comment section of the times, that alluded to recent roster cuts also playing a part – so no resilience left to deal with short term absence.

    • Graham says:
      27 Sep27 September 08:11

      You can that DFS for the issue, there’s a reason the 10 year contract came back after 6. Buy cheap buy twice!!

  • Mark says:
    27 Sep27 September 08:08

    We are due to fly back to Gatwick on Friday from Dubrovnik.
    Guess it’s just a waiting game to hear from BA if we are affected.

    • Rob says:
      27 Sep27 September 08:50

      I had a Dubrovnik BA flight cancelled last year, they put us in a very pleasant resort hotel for a night – couldn’t complain!

    • SamG says:
      27 Sep27 September 09:57

      I would have thought they’d cancel things like Amsterdam or Nice where they’ve got LHR/LCY alternatives vs these flights

  • jjoohhnn says:
    27 Sep27 September 12:43

    O’Leary got good PR out of this saying they won’t play ball and won’t cancel their flights, although Ryanair have a minor operation with only 4 routes, and the majority of the flights are to Dublin. They probably won’t even be asked to!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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