Britons stranded abroad were trying to return home today, while others had their vacations canceled, as air travelers continued to be stranded – with today expected to be the busiest day for UK airports in three years.
It will be the busiest day for air travel since before the pandemic, with 2,864 departures leaving the UK and the same number of inbound flights following the four-day bank holiday weekend and half-term breaks.
Britons stranded abroad were trying to return home today, while others had their vacations canceled, as air travelers continued to be stranded – with today expected to be the busiest day for UK airports in three years.
It will be the busiest day for air travel since before the pandemic, with 2,864 departures leaving the UK and the same number of inbound flights following the four-day bank holiday weekend and half-term breaks.
After 15,000 individuals were affected by last-minute modifications yesterday, more lineups were visible this morning at airports like Stansted, Manchester, Bristol, and Edinburgh. According to experts, clearing the backlog will take three days.
Teachers are among those who will be unable to return to work following the cancellation of hundreds of flights by airlines.
Those stranded abroad had to devise ingenious ways to return home, with one couple driving 850 miles from Berlin to Staffordshire after their easyJet flight to Luton was canceled, and two teachers spending 12 hours on three buses in Split, Croatia, after their easyJet flight from Montenegro to Gatwick was canceled.
Today, according to FlightRadar24, there were 24 cancellations at Gatwick, with ten departures and fourteen arrivals; another 14 at Luton, with eight departures and six arrivals; and four at Heathrow. There were 20 easyJet cancellations, 12 Wizz Air cancellations, and five British Airways cancellations when broken down by airline.
Three of today’s Gatwick cancellations and one of today’s Heathrow cancellations had been notified before, according to BA, and the only cancellation actioned today was a departure to Miami owing to a technical issue. More than 100 British Airways flights were canceled today from Heathrow, but the cancellations were all made a few months ago.
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has refused to help short-staffed airlines by loosening visa requirements in order to reduce travel misery, and has also ruled out bringing in the army to help with lineups at Britain’s beleaguered airports.
Thousands of families returning from half-term and bank holiday vacations have been delayed abroad, while others have experienced more delays, with airlines such as easyJet and Wizz Air canceling more flights today.
Due to a power outage yesterday, planes flying to Luton were diverted hundreds of miles away, and there was also trouble on the trains, with Eurostar passengers waiting up to eight hours for their trains due to a power outage on the line near Paris, and London’s Euston station being evacuated after a fire alarm went off.
It was the culmination of a disastrous week for British tourists, which saw understaffed airlines cancel hundreds of flights at the last minute, forcing police to deal with tense scenes in overcrowded departure halls.
The government, on the other hand, is resisting requests to intervene to assist the aviation industry, which has been accused of laying off too many employees during the pandemic and then selling too many seats once the Covid travel restrictions were relaxed.
‘Kelly’ from Lincoln and her husband, both teachers, are among those stranded abroad. They’ve arrived at Dubrovnik bus station after their easyJet trip to Gatwick was canceled.
‘We’ve obviously had a lot of disruption, but today we’re on our way to the bus station for our third bus journey,’ she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. We’re heading to Split in the hopes of catching our flight the next day.
‘We’ve just been very disappointed in easyJet because it took them eight hours to find us accommodation, so we were sat in a bus station for four hours last night and left at 8.30pm, so we just feel like they haven’t really helped us find our onward journey.’ We’ve had to do everything on our own.
‘At 8 a.m., we found out (that the flight had been canceled the day before). When I checked the app, it said ‘cancelled.’ So I started calling at 8 a.m., and they said we might be able to get a flight on Thursday, but obviously, we’re teachers, so we’re eager to get back to school as soon as possible so the children and teachers who will have to cover us aren’t inconvenienced.’
She said they would have had to take three 12-hour bus rides and would have to fly to Bristol Airport instead of Gatwick, then fly to Gatwick before returning to Lincoln.
Meanwhile, Nottingham train driver Matt Wheeler, 37, said he and his partner had to make last-minute childcare arrangements after their easyJet flight from Amsterdam was canceled this morning.
‘It’s a farce… we didn’t find out about the cancellation until we got to the airport at 3.30 a.m., and there was no easyJet staff or anyone who could help us,’ Mr Wheeler said.
‘We now have to arrange for family members to pick up our children from school/childminders this afternoon, keep them overnight, and return them to school the next day.’
‘They’ll have to take time off work, and because we won’t be home tomorrow, we’ll have to miss a day of work.’
Mr Shapps was asked yesterday if he would temporarily relax post-Brexit rules to allow more foreign workers into the country, similar to what happened last year when a shortage of lorry drivers left supermarket shelves and gas pumps bare.
‘The answer can’t always be to reach for the lever marked’more immigration,” he said on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme yesterday. There isn’t any pull that will make this go away.’
The result of the 2016 Brexit referendum, according to the Transport Secretary, meant an end to recruiting ‘cheap labor from somewhere else.’
‘I didn’t vote for Brexit, but the country did, and we’ve decided that we want a high-wage, high-skilled economy,’ he said. ‘That implies the aviation sector, like all other sectors, must evolve, just as the HGV, or lorry driving sector, has done.’
Mr. Shapps also dismissed calls for the army to be sent in. ‘The Army isn’t a quick fix for every problem. Second, they are being deployed in greater numbers to eastern Europe, the Baltics, in what is essentially a war situation, which is what the Army is there for,’ he said.
‘This is a problem that airports and airlines will have to solve. The government will support them in any way it can, but I don’t think that will include bringing in the army.’
He promised to work with the industry to prevent summer vacations from being ruined, as well as to ensure that air passengers who suffer losses receive automatic compensation, just like rail passengers.
‘It can’t be acceptable that getting a flight rescheduled or getting your money back can be so difficult at times,’ Mr Shapps said.
‘I’d like it to work more like Delay Repay on trains, where it’s a fully automated system.’
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, was one of those who called for the visa rules to be relaxed.
‘What you can do very easily,’ he told the BBC, ‘is make sure that those who were in those occupations before, who have returned to their country of origin, from the EU, are urged to return.’
‘Because what we don’t want is a spring misery turned into a summer misery.
‘Many families who have saved, who have paid for a holiday and are looking forward to a holiday are going to be let down.’
Commenting on the disruption to flights, an easyJet spokesman said today: ‘EasyJet is operating over 1,700 flights today carrying almost 300,000 customers.
‘Unfortunately, due to the ongoing challenging operating environment around 37 flights have been cancelled today ahead of customers arriving at the airport.
‘We are very sorry and fully understand the disruption this will have caused for our customers.
‘Customers are being provided with options to rebook or receive a refund as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required, along with information on how to arrange this quickly online or via the app.
‘Our customer service hours and hotel accommodation sourcing have been extended to support impacted customers and help get them to their destination as soon as possible.
‘Once again, we are very sorry to customers impacted by the cancellations today.’
A British Airways spokesman told MailOnline today: ‘It’s been a challenging period for the entire industry and at British Airways we’re completely focused on three priorities: our customers, supporting the biggest recruitment drive in our history and increasing our operational resilience.
‘We took action to reduce our schedule to help provide certainty for our customers and are giving them maximum flexibility to either rebook with us or another airline as close to their original departure time as possible, or to receive a full refund.’
And a statement from Wizz Air said:
‘We are so sorry that too many of our passengers are being subjected to current delays and, in some cases, cancellations. Across the travel industry Wizz Air and every airline is doing as much as we all can to help as many passengers as possible reach their destinations in time and with minimal delay.
However, amongst other issues causing operational instability throughout the travel industry, there is a widespread shortage in staff, in particular within air traffic control, ground operations and baggage handling, security and across airports.
Wizz Air has increased direct communications with all our customers through text, email and phone calls to ensure – as much as possible – that they are best informed of any changes in our services. Booking directly on wizzair.com or the Wizz app – as opposed to other online booking platforms – remains the best way to ensure we reach our customers more quickly.
‘Our sincere apologies to those customers whose travel plans have been affected as we do understand how disappointed they are, particularly when so many people want and deserve to travel the world again.
‘We are trying everything we can to offer them a range of options so that they can travel including alternative flights with Wizz Air, a full refund or 120 per cent in airline credit – both of which we aim to process within a week.’
It came after easyJet announced yesterday that 80 flights had been canceled owing to the “ongoing tough operational environment.”
More than 40 incoming flights from BA and Wizz Air, as well as easyJet, were canceled at Gatwick.
After a power outage early in the morning, thousands of passengers scheduled to return to Luton were left stranded overseas or diverted.
‘Following a power outage in the area this morning, a temporary loss of navigational aids at the airport resulted in some flight disruption,’ said a spokesman for Luton Airport.
Eurostar services were halted for much of the day due to a similar problem with the overhead power supply near Paris, with the cross-Channel rail operator’strongly urging’ passengers to postpone their journeys as early trains were delayed and later trains were cancelled.
Travelers stuck in France shared stories on social media about being left waiting for up to eight hours at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
While some passengers were eventually allowed to board delayed trains, others who had their trains cancelled were told that replacement services would not be available until tomorrow.
According to aviation data firm Cirium, 225 departures from UK airports were canceled between Monday and Friday last week.
Last year, during the same half-term week, there were only 24.
Consultation on travel According to the PC Agency, ‘last-minute changes’ to flights on Sunday impacted at least 15,000 passengers.
According to CEO Paul Charles, this had “major knock-on effects” and that “clearing the backlog will take three days.”
After letting thousands of people go during the coronavirus pandemic, UK airline passengers have been experiencing delays for several months due to a staffing shortage.
During the Covid-19 crisis, airlines, airports, and ground handling companies repeatedly requested sector-specific financial assistance as government travel restrictions stifled demand.
They’re now having trouble finding new employees and getting their security clearances processed.
Following a ‘hellish week’ for travelers, Lisa Webb, a law expert at consumer rights group Which?, said airlines needed to ‘follow the rules when flights are disrupted.’
‘The deplorable scenes at UK airports this half-term are the result of an industry in which some airlines believe they can ignore consumer rights and act with near impunity,’ she said.
‘It is clear that passenger rights must be strengthened, so the Government must abandon plans to reduce compensation for delayed and cancelled flights, and the Civil Aviation Authority must be given the authority to issue direct fines so it can hold airlines accountable when they break the law,’ says the group.
Commuters in London, meanwhile, witnessed ‘chaos’ this morning as a Tube strike caused considerable congestion.
4,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union who work at Tube stations staged a 24-hour walkout on the first working day after the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday period, causing severe disruption across the network.
The strike is part of a larger dispute over jobs and retirement benefits. On some London Underground lines, a reduced timetable was in effect, and services were suspended in other areas.
Many stations were closed, particularly in central and south London, resulting in lengthy bus lines. People were told not to travel by the London Underground.
Nobody will lose their job as a result of the proposals, according to Transport for London.
TfL has been required to work toward financial sustainability in its operations by April 2023 as part of previous funding agreements.
TfL has proposed that when 500 to 600 positions become vacant, they not be filled.
Working agreements will be torn up under the current proposals, according to the RMT, and pensions will be threatened.
RMT members on the Tube are also taking action short of a strike, which means station staff may not work overtime until Sunday, July 10, potentially leading to station closures on short notice.
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