Staff shortages at Europe’s air traffic control blamed for ‘unacceptable’ travel disruption

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Airlines have warned that staff shortages at air traffic control across Europe are causing “unacceptable” disruption to travellers as the peak summer travel season begins.

Aviation veteran Willie Walsh, chief executive of industry trade group Iata and former boss of British Airways, on Wednesday hit out at the “disappointing” performance of air traffic control bodies in Europe, which he blamed on “a lack of ATC resources nationally”.

“While some areas of ATC performance have improved over 2022, we remain unacceptably behind 2019 levels,” he said.

Walsh singled out Gatwick airport in London, which he said was suffering from “local . . . resource issues”, as well as staffing problems seen in France and Germany.

EasyJet, the biggest airline at Gatwick, this week cancelled 1,700 flights scheduled for the summer months, blaming “challenging conditions” caused by air traffic control issues across Europe.

Gatwick said it was “well-resourced” for the summer, but only 40 per cent of flights from Gatwick departed on time in the week ending July 2, the most recent period with available data. according to Eurocontrol, the region’s air traffic control manager.

NATS, the company subcontracted to run Gatwick’s air traffic control operations, did not respond to a request for comment.

Paris Charles de Gaulle, Lisbon and Rome’s Fiumicino airports also all saw fewer than 50 per cent of flights departing on time. Eurocontrol has repeatedly warned of a “challenging” summer, and traffic “overloads” in regions including London, Brussels and Barcelona.

The aviation industry is battling to avoid a repeat of last summer’s travel chaos, which was caused by industry-wide staff shortages as companies failed to recruit new staff quickly enough when borders fully reopened following the coronavirus pandemic.

Major airlines, airports and ground handling companies are confident that their staff numbers are now sufficient to handle the summer getaway in Europe, with an average of more than 30,000 daily flights scheduled in July and August.

Air traffic control has instead emerged as the biggest potential flashpoint. Skies across Europe are congested following the closure of Ukrainian and Russian airspace, which has left only about 80 per cent of normal airspace available.

Staffing issues have compounded these problems, with French controllers staging regular and disruptive walkouts throughout the first half of the year. Staff at Eurocontrol have also warned of possible strikes, although no dates have yet been set.

“It is disheartening that the politicians who were quick to criticise airlines last year, have remained silent about the disruption caused by government controlled or regulated ATC providers,” Walsh added.

Earlier this week Ryanair quit the UK Aviation Council, a government and industry collaboration designed to tackle challenges facing the sector, branding it a “talking shop” that had not made progress on issues including air traffic control.

Eurocontrol declined to comment. Earlier on Wednesday it said there had been a “positive start” to the summer, and that its data showed overall delays attributed to air traffic control fell 8 per cent year-on-year in June to an average of 3.7 minutes per flight, in line with 2019 levels.