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Flight Disruption Warnings At Heathrow And Gatwick
4 - Apr - 2018

Flight Disruption Warnings at Heathrow and Gatwick Issued as Air Traffic Control Moves to Digital

 

Travellers have been warned of flight delays at two of UK’s busiest airports as air traffic controllers change to new technology. The delays are expected to begin from today, Wednesday.

Fewer flights will be allowed to land at the two airports as flight controllers gain confidence in using the new technology.

Nats' Pete Dawson said the average delays at Heathrow could be around 20 minutes as from Wednesday. The arrivals will be limited to about 80% maximum capacity for 10 days and will be raised to 90% capacity for the next 10 days.

The National Air Traffic Service (Nats) said after 40 years of using paper strips to record instructions, the current demand has grown exponentially and cannot therefore, be met.

The new electronic tool - called EXCDS - is part of a plan to "meet forecast growth" and "improve efficiency" according to UK’s Air Traffic provider.

Mr Dawson said: “It's very difficult to predict exactly what that delay will be - there are many other factors like the weather and industrial action in France.

“Broadly speaking, as a rough rule of thumb, we anticipate that where aircraft are delayed - going into Heathrow, for example - the average delay per aircraft will be about 20 minutes.

“It'll be about half of that at Gatwick - about 10 minutes.” The BBC reported.

People living under flight paths will be affected. However, Nats has requested permission to land some planes “slightly earlier and slightly later than usual”.

According to the Press Association, Jamie Hutchison, director of Nats' Swanwick base said, “We know there will be a number of flights affected, particularly in the first 10 days.

“But for the majority of those flights we expect the delay to be minimal and travellers should not change their plans or travel later to the airport.

“We will be doing everything we can, in partnership with the airports and airlines, to minimise the impact on passengers.”

The new technology is part of £700million modernization programme.

By Airport Pickups London