Passengers face diversions, delays and cancellations at Gatwick Airport, UK after a ‘short-notice staff absence’

Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom experienced significant disruptions on Thursday (September 14) due to a “short-notice staff absence,” affecting thousands of passengers with diversions, delays, and cancellations.

Gatwick confirmed that a shortage of air traffic controllers had resulted in 22 flight cancellations by 10:00 pm (BST). FlightRadar24 reported that hundreds of flights faced delays. The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) apologized for the staffing shortages, while Gatwick Airport expected to resume normal operations on Friday.

The sudden staff shortage had a significant impact on travelers, especially those arriving from distant locations. According to EURO News, one passenger shared on social media that they had “landed at Heathrow airport, supposed to go to Gatwick” and were stranded on the runway for an hour without any information.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary called for the resignation of the NATS CEO, and EasyJet expressed frustration over the delays and cancellations. O’Leary stated, “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,” as reported by UK media outlets.

This disruption follows a recent issue with UK airspace at the end of August, when flights were delayed or canceled for several hours due to a technical problem identified and resolved by Britain’s NATS. Approximately 2,000 flights across the UK were canceled during that period.

The technical issue affected NATS’ system’s ability to automatically process flight plans, leading to flight delays and cancellations across Europe. During the chaos in August, London Heathrow and Gatwick airports worked with NATS and other partners to minimize the impact on passengers, but multiple delays and cancellations were still reported.