Delays and cancellations: chaos at east coast airports

Travellers across the country have been hit with long delays due to battles with strong winds at Sydney airport.

On Saturday, 19 domestic flights were cancelled out of Sydney Airport.

The airport was already under a strain due to it being the first day of school holidays in NSW.

The disruption had a flow-on effect across the country, with Brisbane and Melbourne airports reporting flight delays and cancellations.

It comes as most airports across the east coast have experienced delays due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

However, no international flights have been affected.

The problems come after nearly 50 flights were cancelled at Sydney airport on Friday due to strong winds, with other flights experiencing lengthy delays.

Virgin Australia said Saturday’s issues were due to crew displacements and operational issues.

The airline said Friday’s reduction to one runway in Sydney coupled with a late notification of a Ground Delay Program (GDP) at Brisbane Airport, in place from 2pm to 11pm Friday, was now impacting flights in Sydney on Saturday.

The GDP was declared due to a lack of Air Traffic Controllers in Brisbane, it saw a reduction for all arrivals to only 15 per hour for all airlines.

Virgin said it expects disruptions to continue but will work to move guests impacted by flight cancellations on Saturday onto the next available flights.

“Multiple Air Traffic Control shortages occurring across the network over the last two days as well as a reduction to one runway in Sydney yesterday has caused number of crew displacements and operational issues that are now impacting flights in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane today,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said.

“More disruptions are expected due to the ongoing impact of the industry wide disruptions over the last two days, and we will continue working to keep our guests updated.

“All guests impacted by cancellations today are being recovered onto the next available flights.”

Qantas said delays were expected throughout the day in Sydney due the ongoing impacts of yesterday’s operations and restrictions on crew hours.

“Customers will be moved onto the next available flight,” a spokesman said.

Sydney Airport said it understood that airlines had begun contacting affected passengers on Friday evening, as the airport expects a busy day on Saturday.

“Sydney Airport has been advised by Airservices Australia that single runway operations will likely be in place by late morning due to strong winds,” a spokesperson said.

“As a result, there are some flight delays and cancellations.”

An Airservices Australia spokesperson said Friday’s decision was “purely weather and safety-related”, however many patrons questioned the circumstances around the impacted flights.

The airspace safety organisation said “strong, gusty” westerly winds of 37km/h resulted in conditions deemed unsafe to operate parallel runways, with the implementation of a single runway operation as a safety precaution.

Many on social media were quick, however, to question whether winds were truly to blame.

One Twitter user shared a photo of clear skies allegedly taken on Friday morning, stating there was “no wind”.

Other users said “airlines, staff shortages and runway maintenance” were truly to blame.

Another person speculated as to why only domestic flights had been impacted, given the delays and cancellations were put down to windy conditions.