Gatwick Airport chaos as flights delayed and cancelled – leaving Brits stranded
BRITS are being warned to expect flight chaos at Gatwick Airport due to the current storms and staff being off sick.
Desperate families have complained of being stuck at the airport or having to pay thousands for replacement flights.
Gatwick Airport issued a statement: "Air traffic restrictions caused by poor weather across Southern England and parts of Europe, and short notice sickness in our control tower, are likely to cause delays for much of the day.
"We apologise to passengers impacted by today’s disruption."
Fuming Brits complained on social media about their flights being delayed or cancelled.
One wrote: "Unacceptable to cancel flight from Montpellier to Gatwick today when family are already at airport with 5-month-old baby without enough food to last beyond today."
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Another said: "We are having a similar issue flying to Gatwick from Rhodes.
"Already delayed nearly 2 and half hours, then got told being diverted to Bournemouth...got on plane, then got taken off again as Bournemouth had refused the flight...then it turned out it was due to weather...."
One dad said his family were stranded at Palma Airport, adding: "We have managed to get a flight to Stansted tonight for an additional £1200 then a taxi from Stansted to Gatwick at a further £160.
"While I appreciate there are problems but to leave us high and dry is truly awful we have 2 young children.";
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Someone else simply said: "Flight canceled from Gatwick to Edinburgh and all later flights sold out. Train it is then."
A Gatwick Airport spokesperson told Sun Online Travel: "Poor weather across Europe and air traffic control restrictions are causing delays and cancellations at Gatwick today.
"This disruption will unfortunately continue for the rest of the day. The airport would like to apologise to any passengers who have been impacted by today’s disruption.”
Last month, Gatwick was forced to cancel 26 flights to and from the airport due to staff shortages.
Staff sickness has caused a shortage of air traffic control workers, resulting in 13 arriving flights and 13 departures being cancelled today.
A Gatwick spokesperson said at the time: "At 7am, restrictions were put on the number of flights that can arrive into Gatwick due to late notice staff absence in the airport's control tower."
It comes just as the airport confirmed that the current flight cap will end this month, and not be extended until September.
The flight cap saw flights restricted to 825 in July and 850 in August - instead of the usual 900 - to reduce the travel chaos affecting holidaymakers.
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But it is bad news for British Airways passengers, with the airline cancelling 10,000 flights this winter.
This includes more than 600 until the end of October due to the current Heathrow flight cap which has reduced daily passengers from 104,000 to 100,000.
