London Gatwick faces new wave of delays after storms

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Passengers at London Gatwick Airport faced another day of disruption on Sunday, June 28, as thunderstorms over southeast England and related air traffic restrictions led to fresh delays and cancellations across the schedule.

Thunderstorms and traffic controls hit Gatwick operations

According to published coverage from multiple outlets, severe thunderstorms that moved across London and the wider southeast of England over the weekend prompted air traffic control restrictions that continued to affect Gatwick on Sunday. The weather system followed a period of high temperatures in the region and brought intense rain, lightning and low cloud, conditions that limited the number of aircraft able to land and depart safely.

Reports indicate that the United Kingdom’s main air navigation provider responded to the storms by reducing arrival and departure rates at several London airports, including Gatwick. This created bottlenecks in already busy weekend schedules, leaving aircraft waiting for takeoff slots on the ground and circling in holding patterns overhead when conditions briefly allowed movements to resume.

Publicly available flight-tracking data for Sunday shows clusters of delayed departures and arrivals from Gatwick, with some services pushed back by several hours and a smaller number cancelled outright. The pattern reflects a wider picture of weather-related disruption across major European hubs over the same period, with delays compounding as aircraft and crews fell out of position.

Hundreds of flights affected across the weekend

Data compiled over Saturday and into Sunday suggests that several hundred flights at London’s two largest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, have experienced either significant delays or cancellations since the thunderstorms began. Figures cited in European and UK news reports point to more than 300 movements affected at Gatwick alone over the broader disruption window, including both outbound and inbound services.

On Sunday, June 28, the impact at Gatwick was visible across a wide spread of routes, from European leisure destinations to domestic services to Scotland. Schedules on some popular routes, such as services to Mediterranean holiday airports, showed departure times pushed into late evening as airlines worked to clear backlogs from earlier restrictions.

The scale of the disruption was amplified by the tight turnarounds that airlines typically operate at Gatwick, one of Europe’s busiest single-runway airports. When an aircraft misses an early rotation due to weather and traffic flow limits, subsequent flights using that same aircraft and crew can be delayed or cancelled, extending problems into the late evening and, in some cases, into the following day.

Airlines adjust schedules and advise passengers to check status

Airlines using Gatwick responded over the weekend by trimming parts of their schedules and consolidating services where possible, according to aviation and travel industry reports. Some carriers preemptively cancelled a portion of their Sunday flights following earlier thunderstorms, a strategy aimed at avoiding last-minute disruption at the airport and reducing the risk of aircraft and crew being stranded overnight.

Low-cost and full-service airlines alike issued notices through their public information channels urging passengers to verify the status of their flights before traveling to the airport. In several cases, rebooking options on later services or alternative airports were highlighted as a way to keep customers moving while Gatwick operated under reduced capacity limits.

Observers in aviation forums and consumer travel platforms also described longer queues at check-in and security for some departures, alongside busier-than-normal customer service desks as travelers sought rerouting or overnight arrangements. However, others reported that parts of the terminal remained relatively calm, reflecting the fact that some carriers had thinned their schedules in anticipation of continuing constraints.

Technical constraints magnify impact of local storms

The thunderstorms over southern England coincided with what aviation outlets described as additional strain on the regional air traffic control network, increasing the sensitivity of the system to sudden weather changes. Publicly available briefings from industry-focused publications indicate that when storm cells move across key approach paths and holding areas, controllers are required to widen separation between aircraft or suspend movements entirely until conditions improve.

Even when the most intense weather passes quickly, residual effects such as waterlogged taxiways, lightning risk for ground crews, and knock-on congestion in surrounding airspace can continue to slow operations. For a high-intensity hub like Gatwick, which regularly runs at or near its permitted movement limits, relatively short weather-related pauses can translate into hours of downstream disruption.

Aviation analysts quoted in recent coverage note that these kinds of episodes are becoming more visible to travelers as flight and delay data are made available in real time. Passengers checking their journeys on tracking platforms throughout Sunday were able to see clusters of late-running flights around the periods when thunderstorms and traffic flow restrictions were reported over southeast England.

Travelers face continuing disruption into early week

By Sunday evening, reports suggested that Gatwick operations were gradually stabilizing as the most intense storm activity moved away from London and air traffic flow limits were eased. Nevertheless, late-running aircraft and out-of-position crews meant that some disruption remained in the system, with scattered delays still appearing on departures and arrivals boards.

Travel and aviation media indicated that passengers due to fly on Sunday night and into Monday morning could continue to experience schedule changes, particularly on routes served by aircraft that had been affected by the weekend’s weather. Knock-on effects are common after major thunderstorm events, as airlines work to reposition aircraft and restore normal rotations.

For travelers with upcoming flights through Gatwick, consumer advice sections in UK and European outlets have emphasized the importance of monitoring airline apps and email notifications closely, and arriving at the airport with extra time in case of residual queues. While the immediate thunderstorm threat over London is expected to ease, the weekend’s events underline how quickly extreme weather and air traffic constraints can disrupt one of Europe’s busiest aviation corridors.