Air traffic overload spells travel chaos this summer for flights in Europe

July did not start well for Ricky Medcalf. He was due to begin the month by arriving in Dalaman in Turkey shortly after midnight on Saturday for the start of a much-needed holiday.

“The holiday this year was exactly what I needed to relax and get myself mentally well and healthy,” he says.

But his easyJet flight from London Gatwick to the Mediterranean coast was initially delayed by three hours, then abruptly cancelled.

Mr Medcalf was placed on the same flight the following day, and had to book his own hotel room.

That flight, too, was cancelled at the last minute. The holiday was over before it had begun.

Britain’s biggest budget airline will not be paying compensation for the double cancellation. Both flights were grounded, says easyJet, due to “air-traffic control restrictions”.

A spokesperson said: “While air traffic restrictions are outside of our control, we fully understand the frustration for customers who experienced both cancellations and we are sorry for the inconvenience this will have caused.”

Judging from guidance published by Eurocontrol and studied by The Independent, the summer could become more chaotic due to congested airspace – and a shortage of controllers.

Eurocontrol, based in Brussels, is the pan-European air-navigation service. Last month the organisation reported a new network record of 1,684 movements at a single airport: Istanbul overtook, by 60 flights, the previous record of Frankfurt. That was set in September 2019. While aviation across Europe is not yet back to pre-Covid levels, the summer of 2023 is catching up fast.

Under Eurocontrol’s Network Operations Plan, Fridays in July are expected to see the heaviest traffic – with more than 34,000 daily flights to, from and within European airspace. The peak day in 2019 was 28 June, with 37,228 flights, but since then air-traffic controller numbers have been depleted.

The Eurocontrol plan warns of “high overloads” at seven key Area Control Centres. These hubs handle aircraft across a wide patch of airspace. The centres subject to high overload in July are:

At times of high overload, a “declared sector capacity” limit…