Gatwick Air­port, Lon­don’s sec­ond-busiest, is lim­it­ing flights this week, part­ly be­cause of an out­break of COVID-19 with­in air traf­fic con­trol.

In a state­ment late Mon­day, the air­port said a dai­ly 800-flight lim­it, af­fect­ing both de­par­tures and ar­rivals, has been im­posed un­til Sun­day.

Gatwick said around 30% of staff in the di­vi­sion with­in air traf­fic con­trol are off sick for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons, in­clud­ing COVID-19.

It said the dai­ly cap will pre­vent last-minute can­cel­la­tions and de­lays for pas­sen­gers while Na­tion­al Air Traf­fic Ser­vices, or NATS, gets back to nor­mal.

Stew­art Wingate, the air­port’s chief ex­ec­u­tive, said the de­ci­sion “means we can pre­vent as much dis­rup­tions as pos­si­ble.”

The largest num­ber of can­cel­la­tions will be on Fri­day, Sept. 29, with 33 de­par­tures af­fect­ed.

NATS apol­o­gized to pas­sen­gers but said that a va­ri­ety of med­ical rea­sons meant it can’t man­age the nor­mal flows in and out of the air­port.

Though all the COVID-19 re­stric­tions in Britain were lift­ed last year, peo­ple are ad­vised to stay away from work if they have test­ed pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus.

LON­DON (AP)