EasyJet has insisted on taking out most of its passengers this summer on the day they booked after Gatwick was accused of panicking airline customers by announcing capacity cuts.
The flights, which are currently on sale and scheduled, will exceed the new restrictions for almost one in two days in July and August at London’s second airport, which involves a total of about 500 cancellations.
The airlines said they were still reviewing schedules and could not be sure how the forced cancellations would affect them, leaving many booked holidaymakers unsure about their travel plans.
The upper limit will be exceeded on most days around the start of school holidays in late July, and flights will currently peak around July 25, according to Cirium analysts. However, only about 14 additional departures out of more than 400 may need to be canceled, which must be canceled that day.
In the last month, easyJet has quietly canceled nearly 100 flights that had to take off from Gatwick in the first week of school holidays, according to aviation analysts at OAG.
The move was announced by Gatwick on Friday to try to prevent more chaos and last-minute cancellations after hundreds of flights were canceled with a delay of half a term by airlines.
Gatwick said he limits flights to 825 a day in July and 850 in August to force airlines to “more predictable and reliable flight programs” for summer vacations, when staffing issues will not be resolved at many airlines.
While regulators and business groups called for more security and called on airlines to cancel earlier instead of risking more shocks for passengers, consumer groups criticized the handling of the message.
Who? accused the “drip feeding” of feeding an additional alarm. Rory Boland, What? The Travel editor said: “It was certainly not wise to make this announcement without first agreeing with the Gatwick airlines which flights would be canceled.
“Passengers with booked trips are now in a panic whether their flight will be one of the interrupted ones. The airport had to work with the airlines to confirm and communicate all changes to customers first, as this drip submission of information is extremely useless.
An easyJet spokesman said: “Given the high frequencies of our services to and from Gatwick, we expect to be able to accommodate the majority of customers whose flights are affected by the restriction.”
British Airways said: “Like other airlines, we work closely with Gatwick Airport to ensure that our customers can continue to travel safely.”
Ground handling, including check-in, aircraft handling and baggage handling, remains a major area of concern, with outsourcing companies struggling to serve airlines at airports such as Gatwick and Manchester.
The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Administration told the industry this week to ensure that flights were “delivered” and called on airports to set up working groups with airlines and ground staff to minimize the risk of summer disruptions.
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OAG’s John Grant said the Gatwick ceiling reflected a process that was underway as airlines such as easyJet took stock: “Airlines are proactively canceling flights. Gatwick’s announcement is a reflection of action already taken.
Grant said few passengers should see existing reservations affected by the relocation, but added: “What is happening beyond here is at the mercy of Covid and other events.”
A spokesman for Manchester and Stansted airports said they would not follow suit. Thousands of Heathrow flights were preventively canceled by BA in April to the end of the summer to ensure sustainability, as it became clear that labor shortages and bottlenecks in security clearances for new hires were causing problems across the industry.
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