'Organised chaos' on the busiest weekend at Gatwick

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Skies are full, struggling flight controllers warn

Ian Neave appeared infuriatingly calm yesterday for a man who held the travel plans of a quarter of a million people in the palm of his hand.

On a weekend which saw London's airports at their busiest ever with 1.5 million people flying out, Mr Neave, the terminal manager at Gatwick, and his colleagues were responsible for one flight departure or arrival per minute. Approximately 257,000 people flew out of Britain's second busiest airport over the weekend.

And today will beat even yesterday, with 412,000 travellers joining the mass exodus out of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Britain's skies are at their busiest ­ and predicted to get busier ­ leaving little room for manoeuvre.

Sitting in the quiet of his office, for a moment far from the teeming crowds below, Mr Neave contemplated the boom in air travel. "When I joined 24 years ago [as a security guard] we had a few flights in the morning and then had a rest," he said.

"We can deal with our load at Gatwick but we are looking forward to getting Terminal 5, which will take some of the pressure. We need to build the infrastructure for the future. It is no good waiting until we can't cope any more," he said. Predictions of a meltdown at Gatwick failed to materialise yesterday, with extra staff drafted in and thousands of passengers being processed with amazing speed.

The shops in the Gatwick Village were surprisingly quiet, with insufficient delays to encourage unnecessary buying.

"We are up about 10 per cent on last week but they have been moving people through very quickly," said a young man at the internet café.

But the fine balancing act being performed by airlines and ground crew was all too evident. Any problems had a swift and dramatic domino effect.

Some of the charter companies, which account for 30 per cent of Gatwick's traffic, expect their planes to make three round trips a day. "It only takes one slight hiccup, such as not getting the sandwiches in Palma on time, to cause disruptions," Mr Neave said.

With security an obvious priority for the industry ­ and near-misses dropping despite a rising number of flights ­ the only leeway in a packed schedule is provided by delays.

"Things are busy but the system prevents it from getting over busy. Safety is an absolute for air traffic control, airlines and travellers. If demand exceeds capacity then you are going to get delays," said Richard Wright, of the National Air Traffic Service.

That was amply demonstrated to passengers with JMC tour operators yesterday. "I met three guys going to Palma who have been here since 11 o'clock last night and they're not due to go out until 4pm," said Ray Smith, whose own flight to Tunisia was suffering a two-hour delay.

Two of the budget holiday company's 29 planes were diverted on Saturday because of a wind change over Mount Etna and another two were out of service yesterday. The result was a nine-hour delay that was still being felt by its customers in the afternoon.

"It is the busiest weekend, and we try to make sure we have enough flights to cope with demand, but if something does fall out it knocks on. We are doing our utmost to try to get people away on time but unfortunately delays do happen," said a spokesman for JMC.

But the near-masochistic capacity of the British for tolerance is as accurate as it is clichéd. Two-hour delays were met with shrugged shoulders and wry smiles. "No point in getting irate," said one traveller. "You only do it once or twice a year."