South East Coast service stops providing onsite paramedic at airport to focus on 999 response
An NHS ambulance service is cutting back its presence at Gatwick airport and major sports events so it has more crews available to answer 999 calls, amid unprecedented pressures.
The South East Coast ambulance service (Secamb) has ended a longstanding arrangement under which Gatwick paid it to have an ambulance car and paramedic on site.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thousands of near-empty planes flown since March 2020, new figures reveal
Almost 15,000 “ghost flights” have departed from the UK, according to newly revealed official figures.
The ghost flights, defined as those with no passengers or less than 10% of passenger capacity, operated from all 32 airports listed in the data. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights between March 2020 and September 2021. Manchester and Gatwick were the next highest. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period, although the data covered only international departure and not domestic flights.
Continue reading...Workers in depressed sectors or regions won’t be able to plug gaps in areas that have been quicker to recover, ministers are being warned
There are signs outside almost every pub, restaurant and hotel dotting Torquay’s harbour: Staff wanted.
“It’s been packed solid busy, you can’t get a table anywhere,” said Brett Powis, owner of three hotels in the area including the Riviera and Lincombe Hall. For the hotelier, staff shortages made it harder to take full advantage of the busiest summertime boom in the Devon resort for decades.
Continue reading...The town in the shadow of Gatwick airport hopes the worst of the pandemic is over but fears for its jobs
The differences with the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic are stark in Crawley. Plenty of people are milling around Queens Square in the town centre, enjoying the early spring sun, even though most of the shops remain closed; some permanently.
In the West Sussex town close to Gatwick airport, hopes are rising that the worst days of the pandemic have finally passed. But with global air travel still grounded, workers in Crawley fear there will be long-term damage for the local jobs market.
Continue reading...MP representing most of UK’s Chagossians says failure to use compensation money to help those facing hardship is outrageous
Less than £12,000 of a £40m fund set up to compensate Chagos islanders who were forcibly evicted from their homeland by the British government has reached those living in the UK.
Four years after it was announced, the Foreign Office fund has distributed less than 1% of its budget in direct support to islanders forced from their homes in the Indian Ocean.
Continue reading...A drone sighting caused the airport to close for two days in 2018, but despite a lengthy police investigation, no culprit was ever found. So what exactly did people see in the Sussex sky?
Soon after 9pm on Wednesday 19 December 2018, an airport security officer who had just finished his shift at Gatwick airport was standing at a bus stop on site, waiting to go home, when he saw something strange. He immediately called the Gatwick control centre and reported what he had seen: two drones. One was hovering above a vehicle inside the airport complex, and the other was flying alongside the nearby perimeter fence. The message was relayed to senior management. Unauthorised drone activity is considered a danger to aircraft and passengers because of the risk of collision. Within minutes, Gatwick’s only runway had been closed and all flights were suspended.
Over the next half hour, 20 police and airport security vehicles drove around the airport, lights flashing and sirens blaring, with the intention of scaring whoever was operating the drones. It didn’t work. By 9.30pm, six more sightings had been logged by the Gatwick control centre, five of them from police officers. Inside the airport, thousands of passengers waited to set off on their Christmas holidays. In the sky above, planes circled, waiting to land. Some were at the end of long journeys, and more than a dozen aircraft were soon dangerously low on fuel.
Continue reading...Air travel bosses want assurances that science is driving the move, and that a clear exit strategy is in place
A two-week quarantine period for all travellers arriving in Britain risks devastating an aviation industry already crippled by the Covid-19 outbreak, Boris Johnson is being warned.
It is understood that the 14-day quarantine period will be announced by the prime minister, alongside a slight loosening of the lockdown measures that were introduced to slow the spread of the virus. Mass quarantine upon arrival has not previously been used as part of Britain’s response.
Continue reading...Pilot of Airbus A320 aircraft with up to 186 passengers was forced to take avoiding action
An airliner carrying up to 186 passengers was forced to take avoiding action after a drone was spotted, a near-miss report has revealed.
The incident involved an Airbus A320 approaching Gatwick airport and a dark-coloured drone, the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) said.
Continue reading...More than 500 flights cancelled or delayed by IT glitch affecting London airports
British Airways was facing passenger anger on Wednesday as more than 500 flights were cancelled or delayed as a result of a systems failure.
In the latest in a series of operational problems to hit the airline, and the travel plans of tens of thousands with holiday and business plans, London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and City were the airports most affected by the computer failure. BA refused to reveal the number of flights affected but according to Flightstats.com, which tracks arrivals and departures, by 5.30pm the airline had cancelled 140 flights and a further 370 had been delayed.
Continue reading...Services began again at 7.10pm but airport warns that there may be further delays
Gatwick airport suspended all inbound and outbound flights for around two hours on Wednesday due to an “air traffic control system issue”.
Eight flights into Gatwick, in West Sussex, were cancelled and 26 diverted before operations resumed at 7.10pm and passengers were warned there would be further delays into the evening, with the airport advising them to check with their airlines.
Continue reading...Police given powers to stop and search and use warrant to access drone electronic data
Flying drones will be illegal within five kilometres (3.1 miles) of airports after ministers decided to widen the no-fly zone to try to prevent a repeat of the chaos at Gatwick.
The enlarged zone will come into force from 19 March ahead of new drone legislation, which will give police new powers to stop and search those they believe are misusing the devices and a power to access electronic data stored on a drone with a warrant.
Continue reading...Confusion still hangs over the investigation into airport’s three days of chaos last month
Six days before Christmas, an airport security officer at Gatwick was finishing his shift at about 9pm when he saw something unusual. There were two drones, each in the shape of a cross, flying over the south perimeter road with sharply flashing lights.
The worker reported what he had seen – and chaos ensued. About 1,000 flights affecting 140,000 passengers were cancelled or diverted across three days. Tempers flared, and hearts were broken. Two people were arrested and released without charge. The army was brought in.
Continue reading...London airports purchase equipment in wake of incidents that caused around 1,000 flights to be grounded
The UK’s largest airports are set to spend millions of pounds on anti-drone equipment, the Guardian understands, as they seek to protect themselves from future attacks like that which grounded about 1,000 flights into and out of Gatwick airport during the Christmas period.
The country’s two busiest hubs – London’s Heathrow and Gatwick – have brought in their own military-grade anti-drone apparatus. The owners of both airports invested millions of pounds in the equipment after about 140,000 passengers were affected by the unprecedented disruption to Gatwick.
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