other companies will follow – Corriere.it
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EasyJet, the main British low-cost airline, has decided to cancel around 1,700 flights between July and September officially “due to delays in air traffic control operations in Europe, mostly departing from or arriving at London’s Gatwick airport”. . Italy is also involved in the cuts: the canceled frequencies will be 134 according to the numbers provided by the company al Courier, thus about 8% of all canceled flights. In the coming days, according to what has been learned, other European airlines should announce changes to their programming for the same reasons expressed by easyJet.
The numbers
The British airline has announced the cut of 2% of scheduled flights in the third quarter of this year, the peak one. The cancellations involve about 180,000 passengers who have already booked one of the trips scheduled between this month and September: of these, the company said that «95% have been rescheduled on alternative flights. The remaining 5% were offered a refund.” At the moment the European skies are available at 80%: the closure of the Ukrainian airspace – after the invasion of Russia – has restricted the available corridors, leading to a “bottling” in different parts of Europe.
Criticalities
“The whole industry is experiencing challenging conditions this summer with more limited airspace due to the war in Ukraine, unprecedented air traffic control delays as well as further potential strike action by air traffic controllers,” easyJet said in a statement. flight”. In short, the low cost specifies that “the cancellations were not caused by a shortage of personnel” since it has “more flight attendants and pilots than ever”. The cancellations – underlines the carrier – were concentrated on routes with multiple flights a day so as to allow the travelers involved to be moved to an alternative plane.
Eurocontrol’s alarm
The continental agency Eurocontrol, which manages the airspace of the area, has warned in the past weeks of the risk of a “busy” summer, with traffic overloads in areas such as London (all airports), Brussels and Barcelona. Added to these are the agitations of French air traffic controllers, the threat of a strike by part of Eurocontrol staff in the next six months.
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