Airline Easyjet has announced it is cancelling 1,700 summer flights in a move which it has confirmed will impact on 180,000 passengers. The low-cost airline this morning said that the flights which are mostly from Gatwick affected are from July - September.
The airline blamed ‘constrained airspace’ on the decision, but claimed 95 per cent of people who have flights cancelled have been booked onto alternatives. The remainder have been offered a refund, Easyjet added.
The airline blamed air traffic control delays that have been worsened by the war in Ukraine, rather than pilot or crew shortages. The majority of the cancellations are at Gatwick because of easyJet’s major presence there, but it is also understood that air traffic control delays at Gatwick are around three times longer before the pandemic.
An easyJet spokeswoman 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% of 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.”
Passengers caught up in the changes are protected by European aviation laws which give them the right to travel on any other airline that has seats available on the original day of travel. EasyJet must pay for the new ticket.
If a flight is cancelled less than two weeks before it is due to depart, then the affected passenger may be entitled to compensation, unless a suitable alternate flight is found.
