Travel chaos as 10,000 EasyJet flights cancelled
Passenger misery continues in Backlog Britain...
FOREIGN travel chaos hitting holidaymakers deepened yesterday as easyJet axed more than 10,000 summer flights.
It came as Heathrow urged airlines using two of its terminals to slash 10 per cent of journeys to battle a baggage backlog.
EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren admitted ‘we simply don’t know’ exactly how many will need to be cancelled between July and September.
The budget airline had planned to run around 160,000 flights during the period.
In May the carrier expected to operate at around 97 per cent of 2019 levels over the three-month period.
But the cull means this has been reduced to around 90 per cent, suggesting more than 10,000 flights will be axed.
It means as many as 1.5 million passengers will be affected. Those hit will be re-booked onto alternative flights on the same day, with a rival carrier if necessary. Travellers from Gatwick will be the worst affected.
‘Caused chaos and distress’
It comes after British Airways slashed 16,000 flights, or 8,000 round trips, in March.
EasyJet, Tui and Wizz Air have already cancelled hundreds of flights during and after the halfterm holidays. Most have been due to a staff shortages crisis, with critics accusing the industry of over-booking planes.
Thousands of passengers were stranded abroad over halfterm as a result, often waiting several days before being given another flight home.
With fewer seats available this summer, holidaymakers could see a rise in fares if they haven’t already booked tickets.
Announcing the flight cull yesterday, Mr Lundgren said: ‘Coupled with airport caps, we are taking pre-emptive actions to increase resilience over the balance of summer, including a range of further flight consolidations in the affected airports.
‘We believe this is the right action for us to take so we can deliver for all of our customers over the peak summer period in this challenging environment.’ When asked to put a figure on the proportion of flights to be axed, he said: ‘It would be misleading for me to give any numbers today because we simply don’t know.’
He insisted that ‘the overwhelming vast majority’ of customers will not be affected and said the cull was also in response to caps introduced on flights by Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol airports.
It came as Heathrow, Britain’s biggest airport, urged airlines to cut 10 per cent of flights out of Terminals 2 and 3 yesterday following a problem with its baggage handling systems.
Over the weekend passengers posted images on social media of a luggage mountain after the network at Terminal 2 suffered a malfunction. The problem was fixed by Sunday but it may be several days before passengers are reunited with their luggage.
The plea to airlines to reschedule flights was only advisory but would have affected up to 15,000 if implemented. According to data from FlightAware, 26 departures and 13 arrivals at the airport were cancelled yesterday.
A Heathrow spokesman said it apologised ‘unreservedly’.
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: ‘ EasyJet has caused chaos and distress for passengers over several weeks with a constant stream of lastminute cancellations.’
He added: ‘The summer holidays are just around the corner, so easyJet must immediately provide clarity on which flights are being cut.’