Flightmares before Christmas: why December disruption is so painful

Plane Talk: Airline passengers are heavily invested emotionally as well as financially in their festive travel plans

Waiting game: an American Airlines Boeing 777 at Heathrow, where flights were held during a ground stop on Christmas Eve (Simon Calder)

Air traffic control language is commendably succinct. The advisory message that was sent out by the US Command Center at 11.50am GMT on Christmas Eve read: “Nationwide ground stop for all AAL Main and Subs”.

AAL is American Airlines, and the instruction to air traffic controllers across the US (and, as it emerged, the world) was to prevent the carrier’s planes from taking off. The fact that it affected “Subs” – smaller airlines flying regional trips for American, as well as the mainline operation – suggested something had gone awry with the departure control system. This is the technology that manages crucial elements of dispatching a flight, from check-in to load control – ensuring that the weight of passengers, cargo and fuel is appropriately distributed on the plane.

The ground stop ended just an hour after it had begun. That was excellent news for the frustrated passengers packed on board flight AA137 from London Heathrow to Los Angeles. The Boeing 777 pushed back from the gate on schedule at 11.15am but then held on the ground until the order was lifted. It finally took off at 1pm and is expected to reach California more than an hour late, jeopardising onward connections.

In its post-meltdown statement, American Airlines followed standard aviation PR practice of blaming a third party: “A vendor technology issue briefly affected flights this morning. That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed.

“It’s all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible.”

Good luck with that. The Christmas choreography of air traffic control does not respond well to a giant airline’s entire fleet (save for those already airborne) being held on the ground for an hour.

I estimate around 300 flights, all with the necessary air traffic control clearances, were due to depart in that forbidden hour. Those precious permissions cannot simply be held over for the next hour: American Airlines itself has another 300 planes to dispatch in that timeframe.

The departure from Heathrow to Charlotte, due out 40 minutes after the ground stop was lifted, took off an hour behind schedule.

For connecting passengers, that raises stress levels. Add the uncertainty of how long it will take to clear US Customs and Border Protection, as every arriving passenger must do even if they are transferring to another international flight, and the prospect of reaching their destination before 25 December recedes.

All this is happening when airline passengers are heavily invested, emotionally as well as financially, in their festive travel plans.

The capacity for aviation to generate a novel nightmare scenario each Christmas knows no bounds. Particularly cruel incidents include the Drone Before Christmas at Gatwick in 2018, which caused the Sussex airport to be closed for three days in the build-up to 25 December – grounding 1,000 flights and wrecking the plans of 150,000 travellers.

Five years earlier, in the early hours of Christmas Eve 2013, the basement of Gatwick’s North Terminal flooded. The main electrical system failed, leading to around 100 flights being cancelled and stranding 11,000 passengers.

Those numbers were eclipsed at Heathrow in 2010 when heavy snow halted operations for days and thwarted the plans of 600,000 travellers.

What lesson can we learn from such flightmares before Christmas? That the more important your journey, the more days you should allow to rearrange your schedule if your plans unravel.

Or stay put for the festive season and wait for fares and stress to subside. On Boxing Day, British Airways wants £1,080 for a round-trip from Gatwick to Tampa in Florida for a week; I am leaving 10 days later and paying less than half as much.