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European airlines have warned that air traffic control restrictions, worsened by bad weather, risk disrupting the summer getaway for millions of passengers.
Just 56 per cent 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 4.7mn 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 per cent 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 per cent 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 in a statement.
Airlines have warned that national air traffic control services are underperforming, pointing to Eurocontrol data showing that delays due to air traffic problems hit their second-highest level in 20 years in 2023.
“[We] and many other European airlines are having our schedules repeatedly delayed, flights cancelled and passengers disrupted due to the mismanagement of European ATC,” said Ryanair’s chief operating officer Neal McMahon.
But air traffic control providers, which are generally state-owned, said they have not been able to invest in better resourcing, including hiring more staff to address a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, because of a regulatory system that has prioritised cutting the fees charged to airlines.
Total air traffic costs charged to airlines have barely risen in 20 years, even as the number of flight hours in European airspace has grown, according to Eurocontrol.
“Financial limits imposed by regulation still hamper staff recruitment and training, and constrain essential investment in new infrastructure,” the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation, which represents the air traffic management industry, said in a statement.
The debate over charges is critical to airlines’ finances, as air traffic fees make up a significant portion of their operating costs. Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline by flight numbers, paid just over €1bn in air traffic charges in its most recent financial year, or about 9 per cent of its overall costs.
But the air traffic industry has warned that driving down ATC charges could be a false economy for airlines if it leads to spiralling delays.
Frédéric Deleau, executive vice-president for Europe at the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations, said there had been some recruitment of controllers over the past year, but he feared it was “too little too late” for this summer.
Many controllers were working overtime, including up to 28 days per month in some countries, “pushing limits and fatigue”, Deleau said, although he stressed that safety remained “the number one priority”.
“It will take time to stop the negative spiral,” he said.