Originally Posted by
KARFA
I am surprised there are any days where ba doesn’t have ATC restrictions on at least one route. The Eurocontrol NOP tactical update is rarely empty.
Seems an odd point to pick on considering that ATC restrictions are not in ba’s control and not airline specific if one wants to have a go at ba’s poor on time performance over the summer - there are a plethora of factors which are within ba’s control on which they are not doing well.
They are not picking on this point, this and the general lack of slack at LHR appears to be raised as mitigation.
"But the airline said they had little direct control over many of the problems which have combined to knock its operations.
The biggest is air traffic control, which has disrupted carriers across Europe this year because of problems including staff shortages, bad weather and the closure of some European airspace because of the war in Ukraine.
BA is hit hard because its operations are based at London’s Heathrow airport, which is virtually at capacity. The last day that BA did not face an air traffic control restriction on its flights at Heathrow was June 1, a person familiar with the matter said.
On top of this, the airline flies from Heathrow to many other congested airports across Europe, leaving it exposed to delays building up across the region. This leaves little leeway to recover, with disruption cascading through BA’s operations."
As I posted recently, however, BA is in control of its own scheduling and this "not me, gov, it's ATC" schtick is only true for so long. Ultimately, BA management is responsible for the on time performance of BA flights, not ATC.