Travelers hoping to enjoy a mid-term getaway have been affected by canceled and overbooked flights.
Passengers stranded in Gatwick have expressed anger after easyJet canceled more than 200 flights from the airport shortly before during one of the busiest travel times of the year. Tui also canceled a number of flights, and Spanish budget airline Vueling has been inundated with complaints from passengers that flights have been overbooked.
The airport and airlines seemed to blame each other for the cancellations.
Mark MacKinnon, the London correspondent for Canada’s Globe and Mail, was among dozens of passengers who complained to Vueling after they were prevented from boarding a flight.
He said: “We were taken from VY7833 and now we are sitting in Gatwick, waiting for someone to tell us how we will get to Barcelona today.”
He told the Guardian. “People are being evicted everywhere. I’ve been covering Ukraine, so that’s not a difficulty, but the disorganization in Gatwick is spectacular, and selling an additional 27 seats on a mid-term flight to Barcelona seems like a scam.”
Amanda Ferguson, a stranded passenger, said the scenes at the airport on Monday morning were “crazy” after her and her boyfriend’s flight to Belfast was canceled on Sunday.
The couple, who traveled to London on Friday to see Abba’s concert, have been forced to return home via Glasgow.
Ferguson, a Belfast-based TV broadcaster, said: “We had to be at the airport yesterday for a flight at seven o’clock. When we tried to scan our boarding passes, we were told that the flight was canceled”.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “The girl at the front desk was obviously quite worn out because people had been mourning her all day. Another exhausted staff member was handing out a two-page document on what to do in then “.
Ferguson and his partner were initially offered a hotel room in Southend, 90 minutes away. They were given a room near the airport only when they arrived by phone at the airline after waiting for an hour, he said.
In statements from Glasgow Airport after a flight at 5am on Monday, Ferguson described the experience as “test”.
He added: “Some people were really missing out on the airport and you could see the faces of the poor staff. It wasn’t their fault. My patience is running out a bit. I just want to get home and get in the bed”.
At least 32 flights from Gatwick were canceled on Monday, including two with only one hour notice.
Chris Turner, a drummer for heavy metal band Orange Goblin, ran aground in Germany after two easyJet flights to Gatwick were canceled.
He traveled to Hamburg after his flight from Berlin was canceled, but when he arrived in Hamburg that flight also landed. He tweeted to the airline: “You canceled my return flight to Gatwick from Berlin with less than 24 hours notice. Today we have re-arranged a flight from Hamburg, so we received the trip 2 hours by train here to find out that this one has also been canceled with less than 6 hours notice. I’m stuck here, what are you going to do? “
On Monday he added: “Today’s flight doesn’t seem likely either, I wonder if they’ll do something this time or leave us abandoned?”
Alan Black, of Havant in Hampshire, was stranded on Monday morning in Gatwick after his easyJet flight from a family wedding in Seville was canceled.
He tweeted that easyJet staff blamed the shortage of luggage staff at Gatwick for the cancellation and said the company had treated passengers “very badly”.
Camille, a student from Caen in northern France, is trying to get compensation after her easyJet flight was canceled on Sunday night. He tweeted that no reason was given for the cancellation and that the airline was blaming Gatwick for the problem.
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Gatwick Airport told him that “airlines decide to cancel flights, not the airport. You have to go back to your airline”.
EasyJet’s Twitter channel has reported dozens of stranded Gatwick passengers on its disruptive help website.
An airline spokesman said: “We have made the decision to make early cancellations of about 24 Gatwick flights a day between May 28 and June 6.
“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.
They added: “Separately, last night [Sunday] in Gatwick, like other airlines operating in Gatwick, our flight schedule was affected by the air traffic control restrictions established at the airport. Early cancellations in Gatwick today that were already made last week have nothing to do with this.
A stranded Tui ticket holder, Mark Plowright, tweeted that he was “disappointed” by the travel company after being trapped in Gatwick all day Sunday. Tui apologized for the disruption, which he blamed for “several operational reasons and an extremely busy weekend of planned flight.”
In a statement, Tui said: “We would like to apologize to some of our customers who have suffered flight delays in recent days.” Although flight delays and cancellations with us are rare, unfortunately the A sudden increase in people going on holiday combined with various operational and supply chain problems has resulted in a small number of our flights being affected.
A spokesman for Gatwick Airport said: “We saw some security queues this morning, but it quickly dissipated.” He referred questions about cancellations to easyJet.