Europe set for record flight delays
A shortage of staff means passengers can reasonably expect their flights to the continent to be delayed.
Thousands of passengers have been stranded after Jet cancelled flights because it could not pay its bills. AFP/PUNIT PARANJPE
If you are travelling to Europe anytime before November you should pack a book and a phone charger. This is the advice from European travel commissioners who are predicting new records for flight delays over the European summer.
Eurocontrol, an organization representing air traffic control of 41 different countries, announced that air traffic delays this summer could be even worse than they were last year, adding that the severe shortages in staff and lessened air capacity from 2018 have not improved for summer 2019.
Last month, European airspace experienced the highest level of delay in a single day ever, reporting 307,433 minutes of delay, averaging 14.4 minutes’ delay for every single flight on the continent, on May 9.
On average, over 750 flights per day had an en-route delay of at least 15 minutes, which is seven percent more flights compared to April last year,” Thomas Reynaert, managing director of the lobby group Airlines for Europe, told an aviation conference in London last month, The Independent reported.
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