Special report
These 14,472 ghost flights operated from all 32 airports named in the released data. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights between the March 2020 and September 2021 period, followed by Manchester and Gatwick airports. This comes to an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the time frame in question, although the data covered only international departures and not domestic flights, so the true number could be higher still.
An aerial view of Gatwick Airport, one of the leading UK airports where ghost flights took off from between March 2020 and September 2021.
Lufthansa, in turn, argued that customers were not being kept away by a reluctance to provide cheaper fares but by pandemic travel restrictions. The truth of the matter, as is so often the case, probably fell somewhere in the middle.
The Ryanair CEO was not the only one to come out against Lufthansa, however. EU Transport Commissioner Adina Valean also took aim at Lufthansa, pointing out that data from traffic manager Eurocontrol showed that, in early January, the airline operated more than 60% of flights compared with the same period in 2019. That was more than the existing rules required at the time for carriers to keep hold of a slot. “It is difficult to see why Lufthansa would need to operate the claimed 18,000 flights, accounting for only 5% of its total flights in the winter scheduling season, to protect their slots portfolio,” she wrote to the European Parliament’s transport committee chair Karima Delli – who had called for changes to the rules in response to Lufthansa’s demands – in a letter obtained by Politico.
500 Civil Aviation Authority 10
The number of ghost flights that left the UK each month between October and December 2021.
Revenants without reason Yet, even when the threshold rules have been suspended entirely, ghost flights have still been carried out by airlines. Data released by the UK Department for Transport in February showed that some 14,472 ghost flights took place between March 2020 and September 2021 at the height of the pandemic – even though carriers did not have to operate flights to retain slots. “Flights may operate with a low number of passengers for a range of reasons,” said Aviation Minister Robert Courts, who produced the data in response to a parliamentary question. “Since the onset of the pandemic, the government has provided alleviation from the normal slot regulations. This means that airlines have not been required to operate empty or almost empty flights solely to retain their historic slots rights.”
Of course, there was more to come. In late March 2022, data obtained by the Guardian via a freedom of information request to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) – the UK’s aviation regulator – revealed that almost 500 ghost flights a month departed between October and December 2021. Again, this data only included flights that departed from the UK, omitting arrivals and domestic travel. The airports that saw the most ghost flights in this period were Heathrow, Aberdeen, Manchester, Stansted and Norwich. It is worth noting that airport representatives have not held back from voicing their side of this debate either. In November 2021, Gatwick, Belfast and Edinburgh formed a coalition with low-cost carrier Wizz Air to argue for the reinstatement of the normal 80% slot rule threshold in a letter to the UK government. As air travel began to recover, Gatwick was suffering from the absence of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, both of which had decided to focus their operations out of Heathrow, yet were allowed to keep their Gatwick slots. “The slot rules help maximise competition by keeping airfares low while increasing their choice of destinations and airline,” Gatwick airport’s chief commercial officer, Jonathan Pollard, told the Independent at the time. “Restoring the slot rules would be a clear signal that the UK government is getting fully behind the recovery of the UK aviation sector.”
Here comes the summer As airports and airlines enter the summer, one of the leading stories has been the industry’s struggle to keep up with the exploding demand, with much of the world looking to catch up on travel now that the worst effects of the pandemic have passed. Flight cancellations, labour shortages and unprecedented levels of crowding in terminals all signal a demand for travel that should give comfort to those parts of the industry still waiting to feel the effects of the recovery.
While certainly posing serious problems in the short term, the industry is hard at work to overcome these temporary obstacles. And if passenger traffic continues to rise, then the need for ghost flights falls in tandem to it. As long as travellers remain patient and traffic levels hold strong throughout the summer – alongside the ongoing rollback of Covid regulations – this summer should provide the exorcism needed to banish the ghosts from our skies for good. ●
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
Mohd Syis Zulkipli/
Shutterstock.com
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