Friday evenings are notorious on the M25 around London but this week it’s the skies that are full of problems. With London airspace effectively closed until at least 19:00 in response to a computer problem in the Swanwick control centre it’s not a good time to have a boarding pass in London.
OAG data indicates that somewhere in the region of 210 flights are scheduled to arrive or depart from London between 16:00 and 19:00 with what are likely to be some of the heaviest passenger load factors of the week as a mix of business and early seasonal travellers attempt to fly. In total those flights will have provided some 31,000 seats and, assuming a cautious Friday evening passenger load factor of 85%, then around 26,000 passengers are likely to be inconvenienced in the next few hours. Naturally the UK major airlines such as British Airways (74 scheduled services), easyJet (41 scheduled flights) and Ryanair (17 scheduled flights) will be amongst the hardest hit.
OAG’s advice as always in such times is to keep in touch with your airline and travel agent and be patient. Further updates on developments can be provided via the OAG migo app in the Apple Store which will be refreshed every minute with the latest data provided to us by the scheduled airlines on their flight status.
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