There are at least fifty flights to and from Gatwick Airport that have been canceled or diverted. It is estimated that 8,000 passengers would have been harmed by this situation. easyJet would have made the vast majority of cancellations.
An outbreak in the control tower
A Covid outbreak is believed to be responsible for slowing air traffic control at London Gatwick. The lack of staff has forced a reduction in the number of flights at the airport.
France is also affected by the epidemic
This time, it would be the Pirola variant which is the subject of great surveillance. The first case reported in France dates back to August 31, 2023. This Omicron sub-variant has been detected in at least ten countries including France. As is often the case, many infected people are asymptomatic. Symptoms, if they appear, are flu-like with a fever of 38°C for several days, severe cold and headache.
easyJet kicks in
An easyJet spokesperson said: “We are extremely disappointed that customers are once again affected by these cancellations although this is beyond our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers.”
“We are doing all we can to minimize the impact of the disruption and have informed people on canceled flights of their options to rebook or receive a refund and provide hotel accommodation and meals if necessary. ”
The variant has a name that makes you laugh…
The name of the new variant “Pirola” has attracted all kinds of comments, because although it is the name of an asteroid discovered in 1927, in the Spanish region of Galicia, it is used colloquially to refer to the organ male reproductive, and in Italy it means “idiot”.
WHO stopped using Greek letters and letters with numbers when Omicron subvariants appeared. Zeta, Epsilon, Kraken, Delta or Gamma are other variants of the coronavirus recorded in recent years, as detected by health authorities.
