There is unmatched pressure to the airports, airlines and passengers this summer vacation.Thousands of holiday makers were left stranded after the cancellation of weekend flights when almost 28 flights were grounded by easyJet.
The weather in the London area is responsible for the delay in air-traffic, and the budget airline is throwing gun on the airline for its compact space that is leading to passenger jamming at the airport.
It is reported that the Gatwick and Heathrow airports are having more passengers than their design capacities. More than 1,000 British flights were used by Airspace over France which has very few staff to handle the traffic growth. Passport checks at the European airports meant facing queues for hours to pass border controls resulting in thousands of flight delay.
The first cancellation to happen on Sunday morning was of easyJet from Gatwick to Marseille. The airline mentioned that there were lengthy air traffic control delays as the crew could not operate the previous night’s service after reaching their maximum working hours.
Another runway will be constructed in the London area.Heathrow and Gatwick are having a record numbers of flights and passengers and are the busiest two –runway and single-runway airports in the world and have the least slack in the system.
Two weeks back the runway at Gatwick was temporarily closed due to blown tyre on Air Canada, dozens of flights were diverted, cancelled and heavily delayed.
Sunday 13 August will be marked as the busiest day in history of Sussex Airport, as 168,000 passengers are expected to arrive or depart at an average rate of two people per second.
The busiest day for Heathrow in the main summer holiday will be Sunday 6 August holding around 257,893 passengers.
Laurie Price, former Bristish Airways executive and aviation adviser to the Transport Select Committee that the system lacks contingency capacity built in in the runway,terminal, airspace, rail or road access therefore any disturbance just doubles up. Airports are suggested to squeeze out the last gram of capacity rather than making the passenger suffer from the financial consequences of over scheduling.
However, alternative routes are available through Atlantic or Germany that are basically longer and do not have the same capacity as the French routes.
The SNCTA, the French air-traffic control union said that the French air traffic controllers have more than 10 per cent of traffic growth with insufficient staff.
Thomas Reynaert, the managing director of the airlines association A4E mentioned that the flight delays have increased by 300 percent as compared to last years.
