Several airlines with flights scheduled for Easter week they are suspending or canceling reservations, with passengers who found themselves having to reorganize their journeys from one day to the next or – in most cases – to give up the trip.
Mass absences of staff in the United Kingdom are making companies difficult.
What’s happening in the UK and why many flights have been canceled (including in Italy)
Human Resources have started a real one race against time already last week, to hire staff on call and / or to replace the absent, until it was clear that it would not be possible to guarantee all the routes. Thus first communications were sent to the customers.
Who was it to flight cancellation confirmed was also given the possibility to choose between other options, but different – in not being able to fit commitments and coincidences – had to give up the Easter holidays.
The increase in Covid cases in England has forced a large proportion of the staff employed at London airports to stay at home, leading airlines to have to suspend flightsjust in the week when travel to and from England would have been most intense.
The return of many employees, even if now recovered, is also taking longer than usual, so the flights already canceled last week are adding others, with suspensions that could extend to returns (scheduled for the days immediately after Easter and Easter Monday) and which could also involve Italy.
Airport chaos and canceled flights: which airlines are involved
The premium cancellations were confirmed at the beginning of the week, causing the scheduled departures to be skipped for some time. Furthermore, the non-return and the numerous absences of the staff could lead to others suspensions or changes in flight schedules.
Anyone who has managed to leave from or to the UK, by changing the departure date, may see each other cancel or even postpone the return trip. The companies concerned are mainly EasyJet e British Airwaysboth of which have made major changes to their schedules.
EasyJet canceled 62 scheduled flights on Monday, plus another 25 recently canceled flights to or from Gatwick, which mainly affected routes between West Sussex airport and Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Valencia, Milan and Venice. British Airways, on the other hand, canceled around 64 domestic or European flights to or from Heathrow before Easter (after 115 suspensions earlier in the week).
The UK routes concerned include flights between Heathrow and Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester and Newcastle. Among the international routes concerned were services to and from Berlin, Dublin, Geneva, Paris and Stockholm.
At this point the options available to the traveler there are three:
It must be said, however, that in many cases airlines have given passengers the option of leaving by choosing a flight scheduled for the same day. When this was not possible, travelers were forced to book another ticket at the last minute for the transfer or, as already mentioned, to review or cancel your plans for Easter.
Meanwhile, one of the EasyJet spokespersons pointed the finger at the British health authorities. The workers of the airports involved, in fact, if they test positive for Covid are obliged to stay at home just as required by law. However, the return to work is subject to the issue of a specific certification, a bit like in Italy (here the new isolation and quarantine rules). And this is precisely the problem: according to the company, the delays in the checks and in the issuing of clearance to employees by state officials, which have postponed the returns and left the airlines without staff, would have caused the chaos.
–
