Up to 8,000 passengers have been forced to stay on the ground because a Covid outbreak among airport controllers at Gatwick, in London, prevented shifts from being covered and operating normally, according to the tourist news portal preferente.com.
During this Sunday and Monday, dozens of flights were affected at the London airport. According to the Fightradar portal, about 64 flights were grounded in these two days due to the impossibility of finding a slot to depart, due to the lack of operators.
As usual at that airport, the most affected airline was Easyjet. In some cases there have been flights with delays of seven hours.
None of these delays entitle passengers to compensation, but the costs of having to spend the night in a hotel, food and transportation are borne by the airlines.
The airport, for its part, explained that "due to the illness of many controllers, at the last minute we have been forced to impose restrictions on air traffic. This has caused cancellations and delays.” Gatwick is the busiest single-runway airport in the world, practically at the limit of its capacity.
