Passengers who have booked 240 easyJet flights to and from Gatwick within the next 10 days will be informed that their flights have been canceled.
At the end of a week in which the UK’s largest budget airline has landed hundreds of flights, The Independent has learned that easyJet has made the late decision to cancel many more at its base. great, Gatwick.
The airline reduces 24 flights a day from Saturday 28 May to Monday 6 June both inclusive. Many flights are very booked; the easyJet Airbus A320 standard has 186 passengers; and The Independent estimates that even with a conservative estimate of 150 people booked on each of the ground flights, at least 36,000 passengers will be affected.
Cancellations for Saturday departures include key holiday links to Italy, Portugal and Spain, with both flights to Seville blocked.
Flights to Agadir and Marrakech to Morocco have been canceled.
The full list of canceled return trips for Saturday, May 28 is:
- Seville (2)
- Reykjavík
- City of Belfast
- Budapest Copenhagen
- Munich
- Funchal
- Agadir
- Valencia
- Cagliari
- Marrakech
An easyJet spokesman told The Independent: “Over the next week we will operate about 1,700 flights a day, with a quarter of these operating to and from Gatwick.
“We have made the decision to cancel about 24 Gatwick flights a day in advance from tomorrow, May 28th, until June 6th.
“We are very sorry for the late notice of some of these cancellations and the inconvenience to customers booked on these flights, but we believe that this is necessary to provide reliable services during this busy period.
“From today, customers are informed and have the option to re-book their flight or receive a refund and can request compensation in accordance with regulations.”
The standard cancellation message posted by easyJet encourages passengers to re-book an alternative flight from easyJet or accept a refund or voucher.
A passenger whose flight from Madeira to Gatwick on June 1 said: “We had to book again for Monday, two days ahead of schedule, and we were given separate seats despite traveling with our son from one year. .
“He is currently sitting in two rows of us!”
The Independent has told him that easyJet has a strict obligation under European air passenger rights rules to book the passenger on a rival airline if that is the only way to reach its destination on the scheduled day of travel. There are departures from British Airways to Heathrow or Ryanair to Stansted on June 1, which easyJet must pay for.
The airline also owes £ 220 (or, for flights over 1,500km, £ 350) compensation to each passenger due to late cancellations. If everyone eligible had to claim, the compensation bill would be £ 10 million.