Gatwick Airport: easyJet will operate 'vast majority' of flights following UK-wide cancellations

easyJet cancelled 20 flights from Gatwick yesterday (Monday, April 4) because of high levels of Covid infections among staff, which followed earlier cancellations on Saturday of flights to Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza.

More than 120 flights have been cancelled in total UK wide and to add to the travel issues, Eurotunnel announced three hour delays, causing issues for British holidaymakers ahead of the Easter holidays.

An easyJet spokesperson said: "easyJet will operate the vast majority of its 1525 flights today with a small proportion cancelled in advance to give customers the ability to rebook onto alternative flights. We are sorry for any inconvenience for affected customers.”

easyJet told us yesterday: "As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness.

“We have taken action to mitigate this through the rostering of additional standby crew, however, with the current levels of sickness we have also decided to make some cancellations in advance which are focused on consolidating flights where we have multiple frequencies, so customers have more options to rebook their travel, often on the same day.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to customers on affected flights.

“Customers have been contacted and provided with their options which include rebooking onto an alternative flight or receiving a voucher or full refund.”

Flight cancellations were caused by a combination of factors.

Travel correspondent at The Independent, Simon Calder, told the BBC: “We have got very high levels of Covid in the nation and that is affecting the transport industry. But there are also more underlying problems which go back to the start of Covid.”

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