Twenty Controllers Closed Norwich Airport for a Bank Holiday

Twenty air traffic controllers walked out at Norwich Airport on Friday, 28 August, and the day’s flying stopped with them. Prospect members in the tower struck over pay and parental leave, and managing director Richard Pace said 21 commercial flights were cancelled or sent elsewhere while 30 helicopter runs were grounded.

The East Anglian Air Ambulance still flew. Holiday coaches left for Stansted and Southend. By Saturday the field was due to open again, with the same 20 people still sitting between a regional pay scale and a national one.

Twenty Controllers Took the Tower Offline

Pace said the 20 controllers had taken action on the day. That is a small watch in a company that directly employs about 250 people, yet it was enough to take the Norfolk field off the map for 24 hours because the airport had already said it could not run air traffic without them.

In a passenger notice issued a week earlier, Norwich Airport said it would be closed to air traffic on Friday and that no flights would operate to or from the airport. Airlines had been told. Travellers were pointed back to their carriers for options.

The Prospect union has informed us that its Air Traffic Control members intend to hold a 24-hour strike on Friday 28 August 2026.

Note: Current advice to passengers is to check in as normal and always check with their airline for the latest information about their flight. pic.twitter.com/hAA9kInZhV

— Norwich Airport (@NorwichAirport) August 19, 2026

Pace put the Friday programme in plain numbers. Of 21 commercial services, some were cancelled and others were re-routed to London Stansted. Thirty helicopter flights were also grounded. The air ambulance was the exception he named.

FRIDAY’S GROUNDED PROGRAMME

• Commercial flights: 21 services were cancelled or sent to another airport.
• Helicopter runs: 30 flights stayed on the ground.
• Air ambulance: East Anglian Air Ambulance operated as normal.
• Tower staff out: Pace said 20 air traffic control staff took action.

He expected “pretty much normal service” after Friday, with flights due to run as usual on Saturday, 29 August. That promise still left a practical hangover: an aircraft that never arrived on Friday cannot depart from Norwich on Saturday, which is the risk at least one Alicante passenger raised with the airport while the tower was dark.

The Airport’s Offer Stops Short of 10%

Prospect wants a 10 per cent rise so members match what it calls the UK market rate, plus better maternity and paternity cover. David Avery, the union’s national secretary for aviation, has said members are paid “significantly less than the UK market rate and have substandard maternity and paternity cover,” and that they only want the same treatment as counterparts elsewhere in the country.

Norwich Airport called its package substantial and responsible. After a 3.5% rise in April 2026, it offered a further 3% consolidated increase from July 2026 and another 3% from April 2027, a cumulative extra of about 6.1%, plus a 2% retention allowance that staff could put into a pension through salary sacrifice. It said those employees had already had rises totalling about 25% over three years, and that its benchmarking would put most roles at or above the average for comparable regional airports.

THE PAY AND LEAVE SPLIT

The two sides are not arguing about the same yardstick. The airport measures itself against other regional towers. The union measures itself against the rest of the country, and the national provider’s published scale sits in that argument even though Norwich does not use NATS in the tower. NATS lists qualified controller pay at £50,468 to £56,247 once qualified, depending on the unit, at 2026 rates, after a trainee package of £33,575.10.

Norwich airport is only able to operate because of the goodwill of its air traffic control staff. The airport’s continuing refusal to countenance bringing pay and parental leave in line with the market means that that goodwill has evaporated.

David Avery, Prospect national secretary for aviation

On the Friday itself Avery said the union was sorry travellers had to go elsewhere, “but we are trying to do this to get a sustainable future for air traffic at this airport.” Pace said the airport had negotiated in good faith, put a fair offer on the table, and was “very disappointed.”

Holiday Coaches Ran 86 Miles South

The human cost landed on the forecourt, not in the pay tables. Passengers were taken by coach 86 miles (138km) to Stansted after the Norwich programme collapsed. TUI moved Palma, Corfu and Dalaman departures to Southend and told customers to report to Norwich first, then travel by road.

KLM’s Amsterdam link, Loganair’s Aberdeen run and Ryanair’s Alicante service were among the Friday casualties named by the airport and the airlines. Those are the everyday routes that make a small field feel like a local airport rather than a seasonal strip.

Malcolm and Dawn Holmes, flying to Majorca for their 28th wedding anniversary, had booked in April and chosen Norwich because they live in nearby Drayton. Malcolm, 67, called the start of the trip “inconvenient” and asked whether a full strike was needed after earlier action had already bitten. He praised TUI for handling “really difficult circumstances.” Dawn said they were still going, after a stretch when they were not sure they would be.

Claire Minter, 57, was trying to get away before radiotherapy. She called it “not the best start to a holiday and a holiday I desperately needed,” and said she could not move the dates because once treatment started she could not fly or go into the sun. She said she did not support the strike. Angela Rowe, bound for Turkey, took the other view, saying air traffic control “deserve to be well-paid and looked after” and that action like this “doesn’t happen that often.”

North Sea Crew Flights Stopped With Them

The holiday coaches were the visible story. The quieter loss was offshore. Norwich is a base for charter operators flying crews to oil and gas platforms in the southern North Sea, and helicopter passenger numbers at the airport rose by 3,000 in the year to 31 March 2026. Pace’s 30 grounded helicopter flights sat on that traffic.

Saxon Air, a private charter airline based at the airport, said the work-to-rule and the strike had already hit energy-sector workers and contractors before Friday’s full stop. Its chief executive, Alex Durand, put the list in operational order rather than in passenger-queue order.

There is an obvious impact to scheduled and holiday flights, but the many other aviation activities that support the airport and local economy are also compromised. This includes offshore helicopter flights to support the energy industry, business and tourist flights, flight training, and medical repatriations.

Alex Durand, CEO, Saxon Air

He called a fast settlement “essential” if the wider operational and economic damage was to be limited. Medical repatriations and flight training do not show up on a TUI departure board, and they do not get a coach to Stansted. They simply do not fly when the tower is empty.

Why the Roster Needs Unpaid Goodwill

Prospect’s case is that Norwich only stays open because controllers work beyond the contract. From 17 August members worked strictly to contract, refused non-contract overtime, stopped swapping shifts and withdrew goodwill. On Friday, 21 August, that was enough to close the airport to air traffic between 08:00 and 13:00 BST, a five-hour hole that already forced diversions before anyone walked out for a full day.

Avery had said inadequate staffing would close the field once overtime stopped, and the five-hour shutdown was the proof. The 24-hour strike then arrived on the Friday of the August bank holiday weekend, one of the heaviest leisure days of the summer, after the airport had failed, in the union’s words, to make a new offer that could settle the dispute.

The timing was not an accident and it was not cost-free. Some travellers already treated Friday as a write-off after the work-to-rule, and the extra day looked to them like pressure piled onto a roster that had already shown it cannot hold a full day without unpaid extra work. The airport’s own growth makes that thinness harder to hide.

In the year ended 31 March 2026, Norwich recorded a 5% increase to 453,000 passengers. Ryanair added 17,000, KLM 5,000, and international traffic rose 7%. The airport now lists direct flights to 16 destinations in nine countries, with more than 160 connections through Amsterdam, where KLM flies up to four times a day.

WHAT STILL FLIES FROM NORWICH

• Ryanair: Year-round Alicante and Malta, plus summer Faro, after the airline’s 2024 arrival.
• KLM: Up to four daily flights to Amsterdam Schiphol.
• TUI: Eight summer sunshine routes and year-round Tenerife.
• Loganair: Year-round Aberdeen, with a seasonal Jersey service.

Pace has tied that growth to people “choosing to fly from their local airport.” An independent assessment for Regional & City Airports, which also owns Exeter and Bournemouth, puts Norwich’s regional contribution at about £184 million in gross value added and about 2,840 local jobs. The tower dispute now sits on that larger payroll, not only on 20 licences.

Parental Leave the Rest of the Staff Do Not Get

Pay is the public number. Leave is the part that sets the controllers against everyone else on the site. Prospect has asked for four months’ full pay, four months’ half pay and four months at the statutory rate for maternity, and one month of fully paid paternity leave. The airport says the union is seeking four weeks’ paid paternity leave and enhanced maternity provision for this group.

Its answer is that those benefits are not available to the wider workforce, and that creating them for one small group “would not be fair or financially sustainable for Norwich Airport.” Pace made the same point on Friday, saying any resolution had to be fair to the airport, to customers, “and the rest of the staff in the airport too.”

That is a second hidden bench. About 230 other direct employees do not get the leave package the tower is striking for, and the airport is using them as the reason it will not move. Avery’s line is that controllers are not asking for special treatment, only for terms that are normal for their colleagues across the country. Both claims can be true at once if “colleagues” means NATS and other towers, and “the rest of the staff” means Norwich’s own terminal, fire and admin grades.

Saturday Flights Returned Without a Deal

The airport opened again on Saturday, 29 August, as Pace had said it would. No further airport strike dates were listed as of 1 September. The offer the airport described on 27 August was still described as available, and Prospect had been told, in that statement, that it had not given constructive feedback.

Work-to-rule was not publicly called off with the Friday walkout. The union had already shown that refusing overtime is enough to close Norwich for hours, which means the next pressure point does not have to be another 24-hour date. It can be another morning when the roster simply does not fill.

THE WALKOUT CALENDAR

1. 7 August 2026: Prospect tells the airport that air traffic control members have voted for action short of a strike from 17 August.
2. 17 August 2026: Members begin working to contract and withdraw overtime, shift swaps and goodwill.
3. 21 August 2026: The airport closes to air traffic from 08:00 to 13:00 BST.
4. 28 August 2026: A 24-hour strike stops commercial flying and grounds 30 helicopter flights; the air ambulance continues.
5. 29 August 2026: The airport is due to reopen, with Pace expecting pretty much normal service.
6. 1 September 2026: No further airport strike dates are listed, and the cash offer remains the one Prospect had already refused.

Avery said Norwich could still avert more action if it came back with a plan that was “competitive with the rest of the country.” Pace said the airport would engage when the union wanted to engage, on terms fair to the field, its customers and the staff who did not walk out. Twenty people closed the place for a day. The comparator they are striking over is still the thing neither side will concede.