Flight cancellations by easyJet and British Airways have left thousands stranded, affecting travelers in Edinburgh.
Both Heathrow and Gatwick experienced air traffic control delays and bad weather also caused disruption to flights. Flights to and from Edinburgh, Belfast, Lanzarote and Budapest were affected, reports the Mirror.
One passenger, Tom McCarthy, wrote on X: “Forcing us to sit on a plane for 3 hours, then canceling the flight and giving us zero alternatives is an absolute disgrace! Family holiday cancelled, now I will no doubt have to fight tooth and nail for a refund and compensation!”
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Hundreds of other flights were delayed across Europe, with travel to Heathrow severely disrupted. British Airways has canceled two return flights to Rome, as well as flights to Naples, Barcelona and Larnaca in Cyprus.
At least 10,000 easyJet and British Airways passengers will be affected by travel chaos as the airlines apologize to their passengers.
easyJet has suggested it will not yet offer paid compensation to passengers, with easyJet’s messages to canceled passengers reading: “We’re sorry your flight has been cancelled. The reason is the limitation of air traffic control. The disruption to your flight is beyond our control and is considered an extraordinary circumstance.”
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Airlines can avoid paying hundreds of pounds in compensation if they can show that the cause of the cancellation or long delay was beyond their control. Under European air passenger rights rules, carriers must arrange hotels, meals and alternative flights as soon as possible. The Mirror has contacted British Airways and easyJet for comment on the cancellation.
However, at the UK’s second and third largest airports in Manchester and London Stansted, only one single flight was cancelled, which was the easyJet route to Copenhagen. and the A-Jet flight to Ankara. Meanwhile, Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, has canceled no flights in the UK and condemned what it called “unacceptable” delays due to “repeated shortages of air traffic control staff across Europe”.
In a statement on its website, it apologized to passengers for the “excessive flight delays caused by a lack of European ATC staff today, Monday 8 July, affecting all European airlines. “ATC services, which benefited from the absence of an ATC strike in France this summer, continue to underperform (despite flight volumes being 5 percent lower than in 2019) with repeated ‘staff shortages’.” Ryanair says one in six of its “first wave” departures – 579 early flights – were delayed due to staff shortages. These repeated flight delays due to ATC mismanagement are unacceptable.”
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Hundreds of Aer Lingus pilots went on strike and marched at Dublin Airport last week as part of an ongoing pay dispute. Industrial action began on 26 June and an eight-hour strike began at 5am on 29 June. Aer Lingus was forced to cancel 120 flights on Saturday, affecting around 15,000 passengers.
It comes after easyJet overbooked a number of flights, throwing family summer holidays into chaos at the end of June.
Multiple flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow airports have been canceled with little notice by the budget airline. However, tourists turned up at these centers for accommodation but were sent home, it is alleged. Some told the Mirror that booking alternative flights is costing them at least hundreds of pounds for now.