– The worst thing about a delay is if we lose our flight. It leads to a lot of logistics with finding a hotel, new tickets and a new departure for the four of us, explains the Stakvik family. They are from Svalbard, and often have to change planes when they go on a trip. Like when we meet them at Oslo Airport. The children also do not like the idea of arriving late. – It’s horrible and we get a little scared at the thought, they say, and add that they have been looking forward to the holiday for a long time, they say. Desperate passengers wait to get hotel rooms at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands after their flight was cancelled. Photo: Jarry Lampen / Reuters The main holiday in Norway has only just started and many Norwegians have already noticed trouble in air traffic in Europe. The airlines share the family’s concerns, and fear delays in the airspace over Europe in the summer weeks ahead, writes the Danish website Check In. Enormous increase Norwegian is one of the airlines in the association “Airlines for Europe”, A4E, which is behind a letter to the European Commission for Aviation. They worry about flight delays in Europe this summer. A4E’s Kevin Hiney says that despite the airlines’ best efforts, reduced air traffic controller capacity and insufficient coordination between Eurocontrol and the airlines made the effects worse than necessary. Photo: A4E Communications director Kevin Hiney at A4E tells news that the situation worsened dramatically in June compared to last year. – The last week in June was an unforeseen period of flight delays, he explains. – Compared to the same week in 2023, A4E airline delays increased by 194% and accounted for 43% of all A4E airline delays in June. Figures from Eurocontrol, which A4E refers to in the press release, show that the 17 members of A4E had been exposed to a total of 900,000 minutes of delay, which has affected over 36,000 flight departures. This corresponds to 5,000 delayed flights every day – or over 200 per hour. Desperate passengers are waiting to find out what is happening and when they will get on. Photo: NTB There have been more than 6 million passengers who have been affected by the delays during this period. Increased pollution Norwegian’s management could not be interviewed, but communications director in Sweden, Charlotte Holmbergh writes in an e-mail to news: Photo: Norwegian “We fully support Airlines for Europe (A4E), of which we are a member. There has long been a need to streamline airspace in Europe in order to shorten flight times and reduce the risk of delays and canceled departures. Delays are not only bad for travellers, who do not arrive on time, but it leads to higher emissions of CO₂ if the planes have to be in the air longer than planned.” The table shows the highest temperatures reported today, the next seven days and the average of previous highest temperatures. Place Highest today Average previous highest See explanation The average temperature is the average of daily maximum temperatures for the same date over a period of 30 years. The average we have used is in the current normal period 1991-2020 (i.e. the weather a young adult will experience as normal). The table is based on a list of selected places in Europe, and shows the 20 that are the hottest today. Source: Open-meteo Next 7 days Athens Greece 38° 32° Belgrade Serbia 36° 28° Rome Italy 35° 30° Kyiv Ukraine 35° 24° Split Croatia 34° 28° Catania Italy 34° 31° See more places A collaboration between news and Meteorological Institute Delays cost These delays cost the companies millions of kroner every year. Both because they do not strictly adhere to the assigned landing and departure times, and because the passengers are entitled to generous compensation and compensation. The lobby organization A4E consists, among other things, of the Nordic companies Norwegian, Finnair, Icelandair and Sunclass and 13 other companies. SAS has so far chosen to stay out, but large companies such as Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and British Airways are involved. Calmer in Skandivania Hans Jørgen Elnæs says there is very little to go on in Central Europe before things can change. Photo: Marit Sirum-Eikre / news Flight analyst Hans Jørgen Elnæs says that for Scandinavia, it is not so bad so far. – Both SAS and Norwegian deliver a regularity of over 99 per cent on scheduled departures, and that is good for both companies, he says. – So in this part of Europe we do not experience the major complications. But he points to two countries that have previously had a lot to say about the delays. – Germany and France are bottlenecks when it comes to air traffic control, he explains. – There has been a big problem over a long time with the capacity, which means that there is very little to go on before it cuts. Lack of coordination Many aircraft must be checked at the same time after they have taken off. Photo: AFP The combination of bad weather over Europe has been unnecessarily worsened as a result of reduced air traffic control capacity. In addition, there is insufficient coordination between the national air traffic services, A4E believes. The organization believes that at the busiest time of the year, in terms of air travel, traffic control delays are still the cause of almost a quarter of flight delays in Europe making a difficult situation worse. Published 13.07.2024, at 07.49
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The airlines fear flight chaos in Europe this summer – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
