Travel company TUI has confirmed it has cancelled a number of its flights as UK airports are gripped by disruption. Chaotic scenes have been seen at many airports over the past few weeks due to staff shortages and the situation is expected to get worse over this weekend as children break up for the school half-term holidays.
EasyJet has already confirmed it will cancel more than 200 flights over the next ten days from London’s Gatwick airport. And now TUI has been forced to follow suit.
A TUI spokesperson told Sky News: "The half-term holidays are always incredibly busy. Unfortunately, due to various operational and supply chain issues a small number of flights have been delayed or cancelled. We would like to reassure customers that we are doing everything we can to minimise delays and will be in direct communication should their holiday be impacted.
"We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding during this time."
A spokeswoman for EasyJet said: “We have taken the decision to make advance cancellations of around 24 Gatwick flights per day starting from tomorrow 28 May until 6 June. We are very sorry for the late notice of some of these cancellations and the inconvenience caused for customers booked on these flights. However, we believe this is necessary to provide reliable services over this busy period.
“Customers are being informed from today (Friday) and provided with the option to rebook their flight or receive a refund and can apply for compensation in line with regulations. Over the next week we will be operating around 1,700 flights per day, with around a quarter of these operating to and from Gatwick.”
Elsewhere, Liverpool FC supporters travelling to the Champions League final and families embarking on half-term getaways faced long queues at the Port of Dover and UK airports. Thousands of fans descended on the Kent port to board cross-Channel ferries en route to Paris for today's match.
Airline passengers were also stuck in lengthy queues at airports such as Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted and Bristol.
