An outbreak of Covid has been blamed for the third air-traffic control slowdown at London Gatwick so far this month.
Staff sickness in the control tower meant the “flow rate” of flights using the world’s busiest runway was reduced.
Fifty flights to and from the Sussex airport were cancelled or diverted, while many other services were delayed by up to seven hours.
An estimated 8,000 passengers were left out of position. Once again, easyJet made the vast majority of cancellations: a total of 42.
Eight flights were grounded between Gatwick and Belfast – six to and from the Northern Ireland capital’s International airport, and two serving Belfast City.
Multiple cancellations were also made on easyJet links with Edinburgh, Geneva and Paris CDG.
Daniel Wilkes, a consultant psychiatrist from Angus, was booked on the 7.15pm flight from Gatwick to Edinburgh. It was cancelled at 8.40pm.
He told The Independent: “I just can’t believe the lack of contingency planning from Nats for staff sickness and that this is happening again.
“Plus, airports and airlines have had quite a while to firm up their processes for cancellations, and yet always the poorly managed scrum ensues. Bizarrely, we were made to exit through border control. I didn’t even have my passport as it was a domestic flight.”
Dr Wilkes switched to a Monday morning easyJet flight from London Stansted to Edinburgh, which he reached by Uber at a price of £100 and booked a hotel at the Essex airport for an additional £159. “Fingers crossed [the airline] pays,” he said.
Another easyJet passenger, nurse Katie Williams, was one of hundreds affected by the cancellation of six flights between Gatwick and Amsterdam. She found an alternative flight home on British Airways, but at a fare of £666.
Under air passengers’ rights rules, easyJet is required to cover the cost of accommodation and additional transport when a flight is cancelled – regardless of the reason for the flight being grounded.
An easyJet spokesperson said: “We are extremely disappointed that customers are once again being impacted by this and while this is outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers.
“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the disruption and have notified those on cancelled flights of their options to rebook or receive a refund and are…
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