On Thursday, over 30 flights operated by Qantas and Jetstar, along with ten Virgin Australia services, were called off.

Some flights faced delays on the tarmac, with passengers waiting up to two hours before takeoff.

This incident represents the most severe disruption to air travel at the airport since the Covid-19 pandemic.

It marked the worst disruption to air travel at the airport since the Covid pandemic. 

Airservices Australia, which runs air traffic control, said the disruptions were caused by lack of staff.

Airlines for Australia and New Zealand chief executive Stephen Beckett said he had to wait more than half an hour. 

‘This is not an isolated incident,’ he said.

‘There have been ongoing and protracted issues with air services, ability to staff the air traffic control towers. 

Sydney Airport has been thrown into chaos with a shortage of air traffic control staff sparking dozens of flight cancellations

The shortage affected Qantas and Virgin Australia flights on Thursday, with some planes forced to wait on the tarmac for as long as two hours (stock image)

‘It’s causing crush. It’s causing consumers a great deal of frustration.

‘It’s incredibly frustrating that Airservices Australia has been unable to find enough staff to keep the airport running. 

‘When there are delays in or out of Sydney, it impacts the entire national network.’

Airservices Australia released a statement saying it had ‘briefed airlines on the need for air traffic controllers to implement spacing intervals for aircraft arriving and departing Sydney today to safely manage operations while a number of our local staff are on short-notice sick and carers leave’. 

Airservices Australia said 91 air traffic controllers had been hired in the past 12 months and there had been fewer disruptions to services because of staff shortages.

​’Despite our heightened focus on holiday resilience, unplanned absences resulted in some ad hoc flow restrictions and service variations around Perth, Brisbane and Sydney,’ a spokesman said. 

In September last year, when there was also long delays at Sydney Airport due to air traffic controllers being off sick, the union which represents the controllers said the shortage of staff will continue to cause problems.

‘We’ve been advocating and trying to address the staff shortages for over a decade,’ Civil Air Australia secretary Peter McGuane told the Australian Financial Review.

He said properly training new controllers in their critical roles was a lengthy process so it ‘will take some time until the system is at full capacity’.