Storms pushed flights at London Heathrow Airport and Gatwick back by up to 11 hours on Saturday, as passengers faced rolling delays and cancellations across both airports. Adam Joseph said he was stuck at Venice airport without air conditioning while waiting for a Gatwick flight that had already been delayed by four hours and kept slipping further.
Nearly 800 flights were delayed at departure or arrival at Heathrow and Gatwick, with dozens of cancellations among them. Heathrow had at least 377 delayed flights and Gatwick had at least 399, while a British Airways flight from Santiago, Chile, was due at 10:00 BST and was not expected until 21:00.
NATS and Gatwick
NATS said weather disruption was expected to continue throughout the day. Gatwick had temporary air traffic control restrictions in place, and the restrictions added another layer of uncertainty for passengers already dealing with repeated schedule changes.
The disruption followed storms overnight after a record June heatwave in the United Kingdom, when 37.3 degrees Celsius was recorded on Friday in Suffolk. Eurocontrol described the weather system as “o zonă extinsă de aer cald și instabil” and said there was “un grad ridicat de incertitudine” over where new storm clouds would form.
Heathrow and Gatwick in London
Eurocontrol said the storm risk sat over airspace between sud-estul Angliei and nord-vestul Europei, and the pressure point remained focused on Heathrow and Gatwick in London rather than across the whole network. Other airports in the United Kingdom were reported to be not significantly affected at the time, which left the damage concentrated where the weather bands crossed the busiest routes.
For passengers, the practical question is whether a delay is still moving or has been turned into a cancellation, because nearly 800 flights were caught in the disruption and the split between the two is not given. Anyone holding a Heathrow or Gatwick booking on Saturday still had to work from the latest airport and airline updates as the weather pattern continued through the day.
