Transportation problems have made it difficult for many to return to work after the jubilee weekend, with more flight cancellations and a subway strike that has led to widespread disruption.
EasyJet canceled 37 more flights on Monday as staffing problems that have affected the airline for half the time continued. Thousands more passengers had their travel plans turned upside down, after more than 80 flight cancellations by the airline on Sunday.
The airline blamed a “challenging operating environment” for the cancellations, which left some customers stranded abroad at the end of the mid-term holiday.
Airlines and airports have blamed labor shortages due to the recovery in international travel due to most recent disruptions, exacerbated by restrictions on air traffic control and bad weather in recent days.
An easyJet spokesman apologized and said the airline was expanding its customer service operations to help affected passengers. They said: “EasyJet is operating more than 1,700 flights today with almost 300,000 customers. Unfortunately, due to the difficult operating environment, about 37 flights have been canceled today before customers arrive at the airport.” .
A small number of flights from Wizz, BA and Tui were also canceled on Monday. Gatwick, the airport most affected by easyJet’s cancellations over the past week, said it was operating normally.
Europe’s airline, Eurocontrol, has warned that problems to meet growing travel demand could persist for the next six weeks, with “insufficient capacity to cope” in some regions. He added that the period “was probably extremely difficult for most airports”, in an information note.
London Heathrow announced it would reopen Terminal 4 next week, reducing some of the pressure on registrations and security of other airlines, including BA at Terminal 5.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “While we are still years away from bringing the number of passengers back to pre-pandemic levels, the reopening of Terminal 4 will give Heathrow airlines more space at the airport, helping them manage the impact of additional travel. Documents are still available at check-in. “
Eurostar said its services were operating normally on Monday, with minor delays, after thousands of passengers to London waited hours until Sunday evening to board trains, delayed due to power outages on the line north of Paris.
Passengers in London were disrupted by a 24-hour tube strike that closed most London Underground stations, forcing many people to try to travel on crowded buses and busy roads. .
The strike was the latest departure of 4,000 members of the RMT union for Transport for London (TfL) plans to reduce the number of station staff. Although the effects of the tube strikes have been reduced by the ability of many people to work now from home, as well as the availability of the new Elizabeth line, which as ground services continued to operate normally, many trips were severely affected.
Paul Glennon, 52, a construction worker in central London, told the PA news agency that he “has come back to reality” after the weekend parties and parades, adding: ” I spent the whole morning going up and waiting for the buses full in the center. Rain. Bloody nightmare. “
Waiting at Paddington Station in the early hours of the morning, another construction worker, Miguel Basantes, 54, said: “It’s a mess. There were a lot of people on Liverpool Street and I was waiting for 20 or 30 I don’t know how to get to work. “
Sign up for your Daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk
The RMT union said the strike was a “show of strength”. RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said: “We will not rest until we have a fair solution to this dispute and urge the mayor to confront the Conservative government which is reducing TfL funding instead of trying to fight with tube workers “.
TfL said it had kept 170 of the 272 metro stations with some capacity open, mostly in areas outside zone 1 of the city center. He warned passengers that they expect some interruptions to persist until around 8 a.m. Tuesday.
A bus strike by Arriva drivers also affected services across Yorkshire.