More than 60 easyJet flights have been cancelled across the UK’s two busiest airports with passengers left stranded without information or a plan to get where they need to be
Dozens of flight cancellations have left reams of holiday-makers stranded at Heathrow and Gatwick as air-traffic control (ATC) delays and bad weather wreaks havoc on airlines.
The country’s two busiest airports have seen British Airways and easyJet grounding flights to a halt at Heathrow airport, with the latter slashing flights to and from Lanzarote, Budapest and Venice, as well as two round-trips to Belfast International and Edinburgh.
One passenger, Tom McCarthy, wrote on X : “To make us sit on a plane for 3 hours to then cancel the flight and give us zero alternatives is an absolute disgrace! Family holiday cancelled, now no doubt I will have to fight tooth and nail for my money back and compensation!”
Hundreds of other flights have been delayed across Europe, with journeys at Heathrow subject to severe disruption. British Airways cancelled two round-trips to Rome as well as services to Naples, Barcelona and Larnaca in Cyprus.
At least 10,000 passengers on easyJet and British Airways will be affected by travel chaos as the airlines issue apologies to their passengers.
easyJet suggested it will not yet be offering paid compensation to passengers, with easyJet messages to cancelled passengers reading: “We’re sorry that your flight has been cancelled. This is due to air traffic control restrictions. The disruption to your flight is outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance.”
Airlines can avoid paying out hundreds of pounds in compensation if they can demonstrate the cause of cancellations or long delays was beyond their control. Under European air passengers’ rights rules, carriers must provide hotels, meals and alternative flights as soon as possible. The Mirror has approached British Airways and easyJet to comment on the cancellations.
However, at Manchester and London Stansted, the UK’s second and third largest airports, just one single flight was cancelled, which was an easyJet service to Copenhagen and an A-Jet departure to Ankara. Meanwhile, Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, Ryanair, made no UK cancellation and has condemned what it calls “unacceptable” delays due to “repeated air-traffic control staff shortages across Europe”
In a statement on its website it apologised to passengers for “the excessive flight delays caused by European ATC staff shortages today Monday 8 Jul which are affecting all European airlines. “ATC services, which have had the benefit of no French ATC strike disruption this summer, continue to underperform (despite flight volumes being 5 per cent behind 2019 levels) with repeated ‘staff shortages’.” Ryanair says one in six of its “first wave” departures – 579 early flights – was delayed due to staff shortage. These repeated flight delays due to ATC mismanagement are unacceptable.”
Last week, hundreds of Aer Lingus pilots were striking and marched at Dublin Airport as part of the ongoing dispute about pay. Industrial action was launched on June 26 and on June 29 an eight hour strike began at 5am. Aer Lingus was forced to cancel 120 flights on the Saturday, impacting around 15,000 travellers.
It comes after easyJet axed a spate of flights – plunging families’ summer holidays into chaos at the end of June.
Multiple journeys from Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports have been cancelled with little notice by the budget airline. Tourists, though, turned up at these hubs to check in but were sent home, it is thought. Some told the Mirror booking alternative flights has, for now at least, cost them hundreds of pounds.
