Something fundamentally wrong with our air traffic control

IvanOpinion

It appears that a year on ATC still haven't got their act together.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/more-10-000-passengers-stranded-085119199.html

So far in 2024, I have had 3 delays with the crew reading from the same script as last year blaming ATC delays. Fortunately, so far, they have all been from my home airport so I can just go home - last year I got a several 'free' hotel stays.

bagand96

IvanOpinion said:

It appears that a year on ATC still haven't got their act together.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/more-10-000-passengers-stranded-085119199.html

So far in 2024, I have had 3 delays with the crew reading from the same script as last year blaming ATC delays. Fortunately, so far, they have all been from my home airport so I can just go home - last year I got a several 'free' hotel stays.

The busiest parts of European airspace and it's busiest airports are more or less operating at max capacity all summer. 

Roll in some bad weather (as reported in your link) or other disruption, and something has to give.... 

Hoenir

bagand96 said:

IvanOpinion said:

It appears that a year on ATC still haven't got their act together.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/more-10-000-passengers-stranded-085119199.html

So far in 2024, I have had 3 delays with the crew reading from the same script as last year blaming ATC delays. Fortunately, so far, they have all been from my home airport so I can just go home - last year I got a several 'free' hotel stays.

The busiest parts of European airspace and it's busiest airports are more or less operating at max capacity all summer. 

Roll in some bad weather (as reported in your link) or other disruption, and something has to give.... 

Staff shortages within ATC in Europe are going to result in many delays/cancellation this summer. 

CKhalvashi

Hoenir said:

bagand96 said:

IvanOpinion said:

It appears that a year on ATC still haven't got their act together.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/more-10-000-passengers-stranded-085119199.html

So far in 2024, I have had 3 delays with the crew reading from the same script as last year blaming ATC delays. Fortunately, so far, they have all been from my home airport so I can just go home - last year I got a several 'free' hotel stays.

The busiest parts of European airspace and it's busiest airports are more or less operating at max capacity all summer. 

Roll in some bad weather (as reported in your link) or other disruption, and something has to give.... 

Staff shortages within ATC in Europe are going to result in many delays/cancellation this summer. 

It's not just this.

One of the generally busiest airspace sectors in Europe is closed since 2022 (Odesa FIR, which goes a very long way into the black sea) and Russian airspace is also closed. This is pushing a lot of traffic through Istanbul-Ankara-Tbilisi zones that wouldn't have gone through these sectors generally, which has a knock on effect on airspace as far as Germany routinely.

There are also issues routinely with various airspace causing a loss of GPS signals on aircraft, which on some occasions is requiring manual vectors should the system on the aircraft be knocked out completely. Someone mentions Larnaca, this is one of the problem airports for this.

Short staffing is not exclusively the issue of the respective ATC operators. Poland and Romania (possibly more) have taken on a number of Ukrainian controllers to try to maximise capacity however there are only a certain number of controllers available and they may or may not need to be recalled at short notice.

Westin

+1 on above.

Plus of course Europe seems this year to have had some very poor flying weather over much of Europe. Cumulonimbus clouds, strong air and thunderstorms leading to air traffic flow restrictions being put in place at short notice.

Add further busy airfields like Gatwick only having one operational runway.

It’s a mess.