Naples, Faro and Copenhagen were among the 20 fallers on Saturday morning. By the afternoon it was the turn of Bordeaux, Basel and others. These were among the easyJet flights cancelled at Gatwick on Saturday. By mid-afternoon, 34 arrivals and departures had been grounded by Britain’s biggest budget airline from its main base – representing about 6,000 passengers. The reason, according to easyJet: “Air traffic control restrictions across Europe as a result of thunderstorms and capacity restrictions causing disruption.”
Friday – which was set to be the busiest day in the skies of Europe since Covid – was even worse. On top of some overheated weather in central and southeastern Europe and a technical hitch at the key air traffic control centre in Maastricht, all arrivals and departures at Gatwick were suspended for 50 minutes over Friday lunchtime. The cause: a British Airways 777 whose pilots decided to reject their take-off to Vancouver.
