Flight cancellations are increasing as the high season approaches. What to do ?

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Naples, Faro and Copenhagen were among the 20 airports canceled on Saturday morning. In the afternoon, it was the turn of Bordeaux, Basel and others. These airports were among the canceled easyJet flights at Gatwick on Saturday. By mid-afternoon, 34 arriving and departing flights of the UK’s largest budget airline had been grounded at its main base, representing around 6,000 passengers. The reason, according to easyJet: “Air traffic control restrictions across Europe due to thunderstorms and capacity restrictions causing disruption. »

Friday – which was expected to be the busiest day in European skies since Covid – was even worse. In addition to overheated weather in central and southeastern Europe and a technical problem at the key air traffic control center in Maastricht, all arrivals and departures at Gatwick were suspended for 50 minutes at midday on Friday. The cause: a British Airways 777 whose pilots decided to abort their takeoff to Vancouver.

As the plane came to a halt in the middle of the runway and airport firefighters dealt with overheated brakes, diversions immediately began at the world’s busiest single-runway airport. The Emirates plane from Dubai disappeared to Brussels, while a BA flight from Malaga was diverted to Heathrow, where it remained, due to passenger intervention. Stanley Johnson, a writer and father of a former prime minister, decided he would rather leave than wait for refuelling and a scheduled connecting flight to Gatwick.

British Airways and Wizz Air both canceled around a dozen flights, but easyJet’s grounding at Gatwick dwarfed its rivals: 78, including some long hauls to Cyprus, Turkey and the Canary Islands.

Who could be an airline passenger? A week earlier, dozens of flights were diverted or canceled at Gatwick Airport due to a lack of staff in the air traffic control tower.

On Sunday morning, it was the turn of a power surge at Manchester Airport to make headlines. For several hours, nothing could leave Terminals 1 and 2 – and soon incoming planes were turned away. A few thousand passengers found themselves landing unexpectedly at Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham or even Ostend in Belgium, because the gates were all filled with late planes. Around 20,000 passengers have had their flights to and from Manchester cancelled. Many of those lucky enough to simply be delayed landed at their destination without their luggage. Cruise passenger Derek Flint was finally reunited with his luggage five days after flying from Manchester to Barcelona with Jet2, after the suitcases had their own adventure.

My adventure this week seemed to have been ruined before I even reached Stansted Airport. At 4:30am on Tuesday morning, hundreds of passengers waiting for the first Stansted Express at London’s Liverpool Street were told that the train would not reach Essex Airport due to ongoing engineering works. Instead, we were told to get off at Bishop’s Stortford and wait for the next one. Anyone who had followed that advice would have arrived at Stansted 40 minutes late, which is probably enough to end our travel plans.

Instead, we all ran to the taxi queue, where the 15-minute journey cost us just £65 (I shared the plane with five other desperate passengers). I arrived at the terminal 45 minutes before my flight left, with a bike in a bag that I had to check in. Check-in and security couldn’t have been easier. I even had time to buy a coffee on the way to Gate 59 (so far away I swear it’s in Cambridgeshire) and start planning how to react if, as seemed likely, my bike didn’t couldn’t get on the plane. I needn’t have worried: upon landing in Limoges, in west-central France, it came out quickly.

In contrast, thousands of British Airways passengers were separated from their baggage on Wednesday after a failure in BA’s baggage allocation system.

On Thursday, it was the unfortunate turn of thousands of passengers at Bristol and Liverpool airport to see their flights cancelled.

We need to talk about summer.

The underlying problem: a bit of slack in the system. Naturally, airlines plan their flights on the assumption that most things will go well. They have some backup, but keeping a plane, pilots and cabin crew on standby during peak season represents a significant “opportunity cost”: with demand so high, every flight in July and August can make money.

Airplanes only generate profits when they are in flight. The problem is that lack of resilience translates into massive disruptions (and consequently huge hotel bills for airlines). Either the authorities should provide a minimum level of relief, or we should get used to cancellations. I think it will be the second option. Just make sure you know your rights if something goes wrong.