Wolflair From Mexico, joined Sep 2007, 168 posts, RR: 0 Posted (5 years 4 months 3 weeks 2 days 9 hours ago) and read 796 times:
I was told that there were massive delays on Wednesday in the GVA area due mainly to ATC staff shortages. It really draw my attention as I didn't thing GVA would have that volume of operations where ATC staff shortages would create a massive backlog of flights and, if it were, I would expect some sort of contingency plans in order to minimise disruption
I was on a LX flight from ATH which arrived a couple of hours late and saw lots of passengers who missed their connections and had to stay overnight (myself included).
For those in the GVA area:
Were there really massive delays?
If LX was already aware of the delays (well in advance), would it be possible any (or a combination of) the following:
-Reschedule some pax to their final destination through ZRH (the flight to ZRH left on time and it was not full, actually it was an A320 instead of the regular A321)
-Reschedule some pax on later flights (at least there was still flight to LCY which, AFAIK had still a few seats available).
IMO this may have been cheaper for LX since they had to pay for the hotels and meals of 40+ pax.
BTW, this trip is worth of a trip report... almost a nightmare given everything that happened.
JMM -A319,A320,A321,A333,A343,AT45,AT72,B462,B722,B737s from -200 to -800,B744,B752,B762,B763,BE35,DC91,F70,Ju52,MD80,S3
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21507 posts, RR: 24 Reply 1, posted (5 years 4 months 3 weeks 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 724 times:
Quoting Wolflair (Thread starter): I was told that there were massive delays on Wednesday in the GVA area due mainly to ATC staff shortages. It really draw my attention as I didn't thing GVA would have that volume of operations where ATC staff shortages would create a massive backlog of flights and, if it were, I would expect some sort of contingency plans in order to minimise disruption
It blames the situation on unexpected absenses by Skyguide (the Swiss ATC provider) staff due to illness and mentions many delays mostly between 60 and 90 minutes.
Apart from GVA arrivals/departures, GVA is also a major ATC center with hundreds of flights overflying every day due to its central location on many European and longhaul air routes.
I think Skyguide has been very conservative in reducing capacity when they are short-staffed since the mid-air collision in 2002 between the DHL 757 and Russian Tu-154 over Germany near the Swiss border (controlled by ZRH) which was partly blamed on inadequate staffing.
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From Mexico, joined Sep 2007, 168 posts, 
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