EasyJet prompts half-term travel chaos as 200 Gatwick flights cancelled

theguardian.com:

Travellers hoping to enjoy a half-term getaway have continued to be hit by cancelled flights as drivers were warned to expect long delays on major roads.

Passengers stranded at Gatwick have expressed their anger after easyJet cancelled more than 200 flights from the airport at short notice during one of the year’s busier travel periods. Tui also axed a number of flights.

The airport and the airlines appeared to be blaming each other for the cancellations.

On Monday, Gatwick insisted there were “no significant queues for check-in, security or immigration”.

Stranded passenger Amanda Ferguson, however, said scenes at the airport on Monday morning were “crazy” after she and her boyfriend’s flight to Belfast was cancelled on Sunday.

The couple, who travelled to London to see an Abba concert on Friday, have been forced to return home via Glasgow.

Ferguson, a Belfast-based TV broadcaster, said: “We were due to be at the airport yesterday for a seven o’clock flight. When we tried to scan our boarding passes, we were told the flight was cancelled.”

Speaking to the Guardian, she said: “The girl on the check-in desk was obviously pretty frazzled because people had been giving her grief all day. Another frazzled member of staff was handing out a two-page document on what to do next.”

Ferguson and her partner were initially offered a hotel room in Southend, 90 minutes away. They were given a room near the airport only when they got through to the airline by phone after waiting for an hour, she said.

Speaking from Glasgow airport after a 5am flight on Monday morning, Ferguson described the experience as “testing”.

She added: “Some people were really losing it at the airport, and you could see the faces of the poor staff. It was not their fault.