Travelling to and from Switzerland during a peak season can be a major hassle, with many airplanes landing or taking off late. This situation is especially dire this summer at Basel’s EuroAirport.
Practically every flight departing from the EuroAirport is late; on average, the delays are between 20 and 30 minutes, but some planes take off more than an hour late.
The reason for these delays is that air traffic control tower at the airport is chronically understaffed and it is likely to remain so for a while.
Who is to blame?
The fault, however, doesn’t lie with the airport itself, or even with Switzerland, but rather with the French Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for air traffic control at the EuroAirport, located in the French community of Saint-Louis.
READ ALSO: What you should know about Basel’s EuroAirport
The authority recently reorganised its areas, impacting the EuroAirport as well.
“This means that significantly more flights – both arrivals and departures —need to be monitored, which requires more personnel,” EuroAirport officials told the Basler Zeitung.
And “as it is not possible to fill these new positions quickly because training to become an air traffic controller takes around two years, the situation will remain tense for some time.”
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What is the situation at Switzerland’s other international airports?
Geneva experienced significant delays at the beginning of July.
That’s because Air Traffic Control strikes in France on July 3rd and 4th had significantly affected flights to and from Geneva as well.
The situation has since calmed down, and the airport is not experiencing excessive delays.
The same is true for the country’s larget and busiest airport, Zurich.
It was also impacted by the strike — especially for flights that had to fly over France — but to a lesser extent than Geneva.
In Zurich too, the situation has normalised, which means delays at this particular airport are not worse than usually during the summer.
