Gatwick cancels some flights over Covid air traffic shortage

Gatwick will cancel around 82 departures over the coming week because of short-term sickness in the air traffic control tower.

Airport boss Stewart Wingate said he was "very frustrated" by a series of problems at Gatwick's air traffic control.

The largest number of cancellations will be on Friday 29 September, with 33 departures affected.

No cancellations are expected for Tuesday or Saturday.

The cancellations amount to around 3% of planned departures at Gatwick over the period.

Discussions will begin tomorrow on which flights to cancel, with airlines affected in proportion to their use of the airport.

Easyjet will be the most affected, with BA and Ryanair also among those asked to cancel flights.

Gatwick had a number of cancellations on Friday and the weekend, caused by staff shortages in air traffic control.

Around 30% of air traffic control staff are not available, Mr Wingate said.

"As a result of that we decided that we needed to take action from an airport perspective," Mr Wingate said. "The reason that we are doing this is to provide as much certainty as we can, not only to the airlines but most importantly to the passengers who will travel this week, that the flights that remain scheduled will actually operate."

He added that there might be an increased risk of delays to other flights this week.

October is a less busy month for air traffic, and Mr Wingate said he expected there would be enough air traffic control staff to handle the reduced number of flights, and further cancellations would not be necessary.