Summer holiday plans were plunged into chaos for British travellers after easyJet cancelled 1,700 flights.
The axed flights were due to depart from Gatwick Airport in July, August and September.
The budget airline blamed constrained airspace over Europe and ongoing air traffic control problems for the widespread cancellations.
Around 95 per cent of affected passengers have been re-booked onto other flights, the airline said.
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We are currently operating up to around 1800 flights and carrying around 250,000 customers per day with more crew and pilots flying than ever before and like all airlines, we review our flights on an ongoing basis.
“As Eurocontrol has stated, the whole industry is seeing challenging conditions this summer with more constrained air space due to the war in Ukraine resulting in unprecedented ATC delays, as well as further potential ATC strike action.
“We have therefore made some pre-emptive adjustments to our programme consolidating a small number of flights at Gatwick, where we have multiple daily frequencies, in order to help mitigate these external challenges on the day of travel for our customers and we continue to operate around over 90,000 flights over this period.
“Customers whose flights are affected are being informed, with 95% customers being rebooked onto an alternative flight and all customers provided with the option to rebook or receive a refund. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused.”
It follows speculation that hundreds of thousands of flights could be cancelled this summer because of strikes by EU air traffic controllers.
Up to 12,600 flights daily - nearly three in every 10 journeys across Europe during the peak holiday period - could be delayed or axed.
Workers at Eurocontrol, which manages European airspace, have said they will walk out in a dispute over pay, hours and staffing issues.
