Air traffic control issues risk disrupting summer travel, warn airlines

European airlines have warned that air traffic control restrictions, worsened by bad weather, risk disrupting the summer getaway for millions of passengers. Just 56% of flights in Europe departed on time in the first week of July, as weather issues and air traffic restrictions combined to hit punctuality, according to figures from Eurocontrol, which manages the region’s airspace and national air navigation providers. Last month, passengers suffered a cumulative 4.7m minutes of flight delays, up almost a third from a year before, the group said. After disruption at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports earlier in the month, Ryanair on Friday said “excessive flight delays caused by European [air traffic control] staff shortages”, had delayed 24% of its first-wave departures (135 of its 574 aircraft) that day. The problems were “affecting all European airlines”, it said. “We have become really worried lately . . . the numbers [of flights delayed] have been silly,” said Ourania Georgoutsakou managing director of Airlines for Europe, the industry trade body. The rise in delays follows growing pressure on Europe’s airspace as airlines send an increasing number of planes into already congested skies. Bad weather, a shortage of air traffic controllers and the closure of a large area of Europe’s airspace because of Russia’s war in Ukraine have also placed more strain on the air traffic control network. In June, there were on average 33,671 daily flights in Europe, a 5.2% increase on the previous year, according to Eurocontrol, as airlines added fresh capacity to meet rising demand in a post-pandemic travel boom. “Summer 2024 is proving particularly challenging due to strong traffic growth and network saturation combined with adverse weather,” Eurocontrol said.<br/>