Delays due to congestion in Europe (28/04)

[yorkie]

I'm currently awaiting departure for Bratislava and we have been told there will be a delay, which will total around an hour, due to congestion in Europe. There is reportedly no issue here.

Is this common and why might this be the case? Also how do they decide which flights should be grounded as a result and for how long? Is it an exceptional thing or routine?

I don't think the airport we are landing in is a busy airport and we are not due to arrive until very late so I don't think they can be anticipating delays there; is the issue with the intermediate part of the journey? And what is the driver of these capacity limits?

 

[heart-of-wessex]

I'm currently awaiting departure for Bratislava and we have been told there will be a delay, which will total around an hour, due to congestion in Europe. There is reportedly no issue here.

Is this common and why might this be the case? Also how do they decide which flights should be grounded as a result and for how long? Is it an exceptional thing or routine?

I don't think the airport we are landing in is a busy airport and we are not due to arrive until very late so I don't think they can be anticipating delays there; is the issue with the intermediate part of the journey? And what is the driver of these capacity limits?

Not the first time I've heard of that, twice I've been on an Easyjet flight at Bristol Airport and we've been told the exact same delay reason, congestion in Europe.

What it turned out to be was the lack of airspace in France due to Air Traffic Control strike, I'd imagine it was very limited staffing at the Euro Control.

Not saying that will be the reason for your delay today but its a possibility (quite often they are on strike there) or could be shortages in some other ATC centre as well

 

[D1024]

Hi Yorkie,
guessing you were on FR34 MAN-BTS? The aircraft for this flight arrived in Manchester on time (actually 7 mins early). However; having checked the Eurocontrol Post Ops Portal, a short notice ATC Flow Management Restriction was imposed at 1947 affecting traffic transiting the Rhein Upper Flight Information Region (UIR) in Germany/Netherlands. The reason given is ATC Staffing so I suspect the oncoming night shift were short of Controllers. As your flight to BTS would transit this UIR you got delayed - just over an hour late landing BTS by the look of it.

Congestion is not really the right description as in reality what happens is the number of flights allowed is reduced to avoid overloading the smaller number staff of and to allow handle them to deliver the service safely. However for the general public a generic "due to congestion" satisfies most

Can explain more next weekend!

 

[stj]

What is going on with the TUI delays,is this due to missed or no slots? or tech issues as a few have been loaded and ready to go when cancelled so cant blame lack of ground staff.Are the 737 Max playing up?

 

[thejuggler]

TUI need to be in front of a Committee to explain away what has gone wrong.

I suspect they needed the bookings to get the revenue, they were never in a position to fulfil their obligations, but cancelling and compensation was a viable alternative.

 

[ld0595]

Had a similar thing happen last Thursday morning flying Edinburgh to Berlin.

Pushback crew didn't arrive on time leading us to miss our slot. We got a new one over 1h 10 mins later due to ATC limitations. Fortunately we soon managed to get a sooner one which meant we arrived in Berlin only 45 mins late.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Expected the worst flying easyJet last week - Manchester-Geneva (Mon am) and back from Munich (Thu pm).
But Manchester was a doddle both ways, something like 20 minutes from train to departure lounge and vv, hardly breaking my stride and no queues.
The worst part of the trip was the forced route march to remote manual passport control desks at both GVA and MUC.
We were not allowed to use the e-gates at either airport, and I can't work out if this is a consequence of Brexit or not.
At MUC, the e-gates are available to citizens of Korea, Japan, USA and others so I suspect not.

At GVA there was the nonsense of arriving at what appears to be an air bridge.
But it just leads down to a remote gate where a bus is waiting to deliver you to the exact wrong end of the passenger terminal!

Manchester gets zero points for its escalator/walkway maintenance.
I cased out the route from the station to T1 a couple of weeks before, and all the bridge walkways/escalators were stopped.
Three weeks later, nothing had changed. Some major breakdown it seems.

 

[Cloud Strife]

It's happening a lot recently. I've just had a flight last weekend which sat on the ground for nearly 40 minutes due to ATC restrictions over France. The captain at one point was standing next to the cockpit, and I asked him what was happening. He said that they were just about to begin pushback when they were informed of a sudden restriction in the Marseille FIR, caused by a lack of staff.

They asked to be routed via the Bordeaux and Paris FIR because they were concerned about missing the curfew in BER, but Eurocontrol rejected the request.

 

[Iskra]

Expected the worst flying easyJet last week - Manchester-Geneva (Mon am) and back from Munich (Thu pm).
But Manchester was a doddle both ways, something like 20 minutes from train to departure lounge and vv, hardly breaking my stride and no queues.
The worst part of the trip was the forced route march to remote manual passport control desks at both GVA and MUC.
We were not allowed to use the e-gates at either airport, and I can't work out if this is a consequence of Brexit or not.
At MUC, the e-gates are available to citizens of Korea, Japan, USA and others so I suspect not.

At GVA there was the nonsense of arriving at what appears to be an air bridge.
But it just leads down to a remote gate where a bus is waiting to deliver you to the exact wrong end of the passenger terminal!

Manchester gets zero points for its escalator/walkway maintenance.
I cased out the route from the station to T1 a couple of weeks before, and all the bridge walkways/escalators were stopped.
Three weeks later, nothing had changed. Some major breakdown it seems.

Same experience for me flying Manchester-Milan at the start of June and Lamezia Terme-Milan Malpensa-Manchester last Monday. All very efficient and no substantial queues, but Manchester Airport is very shabby and tired. I used E-gates at all airports, but then had to be manually stamped into/out of Italy after each E-gate at Milan both ways. No problems with my 2 Easyjet flights. My first time on Wizz Air from Lamezia Terme to Milan and I was very impressed with their operation.

 

[joncombe]

The worst part of the trip was the forced route march to remote manual passport control desks at both GVA and MUC.
We were not allowed to use the e-gates at either airport, and I can't work out if this is a consequence of Brexit or not.
At MUC, the e-gates are available to citizens of Korea, Japan, USA and others so I suspect not.

I was able to use the egates at Amsterdam Schiphol when making a connection there last week, so there doesn't seem to be a blanket block on British passport holders using them and was advised to use them when staff saw my passport. I guess it depends on the airport.

That said having gone through I was called over to another desk. I assumed I had been pulled out for a random check, but in fact it was because I needed the exit stamp,which I completely forgot about. Lucky they spotted it for me, I gather you can get a big fine without as it is assumed you overstayed.

 

[roversfan2001]

Manchester gets zero points for its escalator/walkway maintenance.
I cased out the route from the station to T1 a couple of weeks before, and all the bridge walkways/escalators were stopped.
Three weeks later, nothing had changed. Some major breakdown it seems.

They've been out of use since at least mid November 2021. It wouldn't surprise me if they were turned off during the first lockdown and now won't turn back on again.

 

[gabrielhj07]

Geneva is a right hassle from the passenger’s perspective, especially the satellite terminals.

 

[johncrossley]

Expected the worst flying easyJet last week - Manchester-Geneva (Mon am) and back from Munich (Thu pm).
But Manchester was a doddle both ways, something like 20 minutes from train to departure lounge and vv, hardly breaking my stride and no queues.
The worst part of the trip was the forced route march to remote manual passport control desks at both GVA and MUC.
We were not allowed to use the e-gates at either airport, and I can't work out if this is a consequence of Brexit or not.
At MUC, the e-gates are available to citizens of Korea, Japan, USA and others so I suspect not.

I was able to use the egates at Amsterdam Schiphol when making a connection there last week, so there doesn't seem to be a blanket block on British passport holders using them and was advised to use them when staff saw my passport. I guess it depends on the airport.

Non-EU/Schengen passports cannot be used at gates when entering the Schengen area, but can be used for connections. When leaving the Schengen area, non-EU/Schengen passports can be used but must be stamped. So if you actually go to Amsterdam without a connection, you have to use the manual passport control. From what I've heard, the queues there are huge, because it has so many flights from the UK.

Airports in Portugal have installed gates that can be used for certain non-EU passports, including the UK, but they still need to have their passport stamped. They have separate gates for EU/Schengen passports which UK passport holders can't use.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

So can we expect this passport-stamping farrago to change with ETIAS when it starts next year?
Hopefully you'd then get an automatic entry/exit stamp against the pre-authorised ETIAS data.
If so the €7 (for 3 years) will be worth it.

 

[roversfan2001]

So can we expect this passport-stamping farrago to change with ETIAS when it starts next year?
Hopefully you'd then get an automatic entry/exit stamp against the pre-authorised ETIAS data.
If so the €7 (for 3 years) will be worth it.

The stamping will end when the Entry-Exit System (ESS) is brought in. The current date for this is end of September 2022, having been pushed back multiple times.