Airline says check flight before leaving home

easyJet, which has the largest number of flights of any single airline at Gatwick, has been putting all cancellations on its web site.

A spokesman said: " As a result of significant snowfall across the UK and parts of Europe, easyJet, like many airlines, is experiencing continued disruption. The disruption has been exacerbated by the closure of many airports which has had a knock on affect to our services, however over the last five days of severe weather disruption, the airline has been working hard to get its operation back to normal and has operated over 80 per cet of its flights, albeit with some delays.

"easyJet sincerely apologises to those who have been affected by the disruption caused by such exceptional circumstances and would like to reassure passengers the airline is doing everything possible to minimise the delays and cancellations and get them to their destination as soon as possible.

Due to further snow fall overnight and numerous aircraft and flight crew being out of position as result of Monday night's snow closures, we regrettably had to cancel a number of flights this morning. A full list of cancelled flights is available on http://easyjet.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/easyjet.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3708.

There is severe disruption at Gatwick Airport today, Tuesday, with numerous cancellations.

Passengers are advised, they MUST check the 'Flight Disruption' section on www.easyJet.com to ensure their flight is not cancelled before going to the airport.

If their flight has been cancelled the airline requests passengers do NOT to go to the airport instead make the refund request or arrange the transfer online. Passengers should be aware, given this is a busy time of year, there is little availability over the next few days, so passengers whose flights have been cancelled today may not be able to transfer on to flights for a few days.

Going to the airport to make alternative arrangements is NOT recommended as the airports are very busy. To arrange the free transfer passengers should log on to 'Manage Bookings' on www.easyjet.com

Although there had been complaints from disappointed travellers about the number of flights cancelled by EasyJet, he explained: " We have far more flights than anyone else from the airport and today we managed to get more than two-thirds out on schedule, but had to cancel the remainder.

"There has been a tremendous knock-on effect since Gatwick was closed on Friday for several hours. Since then Manchester, Luton and Geneva airports have also been closed. Heathrow has remained open because it did not suffer the same severe weather conditions.

"Gatwick was closed again on Sunday evening for a short time and for a period today for de-icing. Geneva was also closed this morning.

"It is inevitable we have had to lose some flights, but our key aim is to try and ensure people trying to get home do so for Christmas. Unlike some airlines we have kept our customers informed throughout with a daily list of cancellations on our website-www.easyjet.com