More than 7,000 passengers have had their flights grounded by low-cost airline easyJet today (Thursday). The carrier has been forced to cancel more than 40 services from London Gatwick, including holiday flights between the airport and Alicante, Madrid, Paris and Rome.
Most customers were given at a day's notice of the flight cancellations, but some - including those booked on a flight to Paris - were informed much closer to departure. The airline blamed industrial action in France for the cancelation.
“We have been advised by French authorities that firefighting and rescue services in Paris Charles De Gaulle airport will be taking part in industrial action between 0600 to 1300 local time. As a result of this action, only one runway will be in use instead of two and all airlines have been told to reduce their flight schedule at Paris CDG airport by 25 per cent during this time period,” the carrier stated.
Chief operating officer Sophie Deckers said earlier this week that delays in new cabin crew recruits receiving security passes “caught us by surprise”. She said the process is typically taking around 14 weeks, compared with 10 weeks before the pandemic.
The delay is due to difficulties many individuals are having obtaining reference for all the jobs they have done in the past five years, with the pandemic often creating complicated employment histories.
She added: “In many cases, people have had 10 jobs in the last couple of years. Maybe some of them were only for a couple of weeks, but we’re required to get a reference from each of those, so that’s what’s taking the length of time.
“We have today 142 crew ready and trained to go online that don’t have their ID passes.”
List of easyJet flights cancelled from Gatwick Airport
- Alicante
- Athens
- Belfast City
- Bodrum
- Bordeaux
- Edinburgh
- Faro
- Gran Canaria
- Hurghada
- Krakow
- Madrid
- Malaga
- Malta
- Milan Malpensa
- Montpellier
- Munich
- Nice
- Olbia
- Palermo
- Paphos
- Paris
- Prague
- Rome
The latest cancellations come after British Airways cut more than 100 flights to and from its base, Heathrow, on Tuesday. Some 114 short-haul flights were axed with a reported 22 of those domestic flight, while 92 international flights to Europe were also dropped.
The airline said almost all of the cancellations were pre-planned and that passengers were given advance notice of the disruption.
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