Nats should be embarrassed over cancellation of 164 flights at Gatwick | Nils Pratley

The mission-critical nature of air traffic control surely means that you have standby staff in place in case of sickness

In the competitive field of infrastructure shambles, cancelled flights at Gatwick are an also-ran. All the same, the embarrassment factor ought to be acute. How can a shortage of staff in the air traffic controllers - we are talking about as few as 10 individuals off sick - mean the UK's second largest airport has to ground 164 flights this week? Where is the slack in the system? Where is the backup?

The superficial explanation from Nats, the company running the control tower at the West Sussex airport, is easy enough to follow. With 30% of tower staff unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid, we cannot manage the number of flights that were originally planned for this week," it says. Thus capacity will be capped this week at 800 arrivals or departures a day.