British Airways cancels 78 UK flights from Heathrow airport as chaos continues

Don’t miss a thing! Sign up to the Daily Star’s newsletter

British Airways and EasyJet have cancelled more than 100 flights with the issue causing chaos in UK airports, reports the Mirror.

It’s likely that travellers who are able to catch their flights will be confronted by long queues at security and check in – so should allow plenty of time to get through airports.

Now, British Airways has grounded a further 78 flights to and from Heathrow Airport today due to its decision to reduce its schedule until the end of May.

This is being done to reportedly boost reliability as coronavirus decimates staffing numbers.

EasyJet has cancelled at least 30 flights from Gatwick Airport today as well.

Routes affected include flights out to Amsterdam, Netherlands, Krakow, Poland, Bologna, Italy and Berlin in Germany.

Holidaymakers have been plagued by missed and delayed flights as well as cancellations and queues out of the door at major British airports this week.

Chaos was seen at both Manchester Airport and Birmingham airport yesterday.

A spokesperson for British Airways told the Daily Star yesterday: "Aviation has been one of the industries worst hit by the pandemic and airlines and airports are experiencing the same issues rebuilding their operations while managing the continuing impact of Covid.
"We are also building a completely new subsidiary at Gatwick while increasing the size of our schedule at Heathrow.

"So while the vast majority of our flights continue to operate as planned, as a precaution we've slightly reduced our schedule between now and the end of May as we ramp back up.

"We've apologised to customers who are affected by this and to limit the inconvenience have re-booked them onto earlier or later flights on the same day they were originally due to travel where possible. We're also offering them the opportunity to book onto an alternative flight or request a full refund."

Yesterday, An EasyJet spokesperson said: "Unfortunately it has been necessary to make some additional cancellations for today and tomorrow.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

Images emerged yesterday of holidaymakers queueing out of the door of Manchester Airport – and they took to social media to share their grievances.

Many claimed that the huge lines and delays caused them to miss their flights as they were unable to get to the gate.

The Daily Star has approached BA and EasyJet for up-to-date comment.

  • British Airways
  • Easyjet
  • Gatwick

Source: Read Full Article