Airports and destinations affected by travel chaos as Jet2 boss blames Brexit

Travel chaos is continuing for British holidaymakers as more flights are cancelled. Here are the airports and flights still affected by the disarray in the aviation industry

The Jubilee weekend has seen chaos continuing for British travellers who have witnessed significant disruption at airports across the country and hundreds of flights cancelled.

There were nearly 200 flight cancellations over the weekend, leaving thousands of Brits stranded or unable to travel.

As well as this, massive queues in certain airports have meant that even when flights aren’t cancelled, many people are still missing them.

Disruption in the aviation industry has been going on for months now and airline bosses have blamed staff shortages and Brexit.

Here’s everything you need to know about which airports and flights are being affected by travel mayhem.

Which airports are experiencing massive queues?

Several airports across the UK have been thrown into disarray, with huge queues for security and check-in causing passengers to miss their flights.

Manchester airport was one of the first to see reports of huge queues, and its website still warns that “security queues may be longer than usual at times”.

This morning (June 6), Edinburgh airport made headlines as over a hundred passengers were forced to queue outside.

In response to the chaos, a spokesperson said: “Queues are expected in busy environments like airports and more likely in busy periods like summer.

“This morning queues were outside for a short time and staff worked incredibly hard to get passengers through security as quickly as possible.”

Bristol airport has seen queues building up for over a week, and head of customer operations Richard Tomasson has apologised saying: “We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused, we do share their frustration.

“My reassurance to customers going forward is that we are doing all we can to shore up those numbers.”

Leeds Bradford Airport was described as having “biblical queues” ahead of the Jubilee weekend.

Large queues have also been reported at several London airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, where some passengers have been waiting up to six hours for flights before being sent home.

Dublin Airport has seen weeks of chaos, but it’s now been reported that all is operating “smoothly” again.

Which airlines are cancelling flights and what destinations are affected?

Several airlines have been cancelling flights, resulting in even further chaos at airports.

The main airlines cancelling flights include EasyJet, Wizz Air, British Airways and TUI.

British Airways recently cancelled over 120 short-haul flights to and from Heathrow airport. They include flights between the London airport and Aberdeen, Belfast, Amsterdam, Faro, Malaga and more.

In May EasyJet cancelled over 200 flights and on Sunday it announced that it was cancelling another 80 flights.

The EasyJet cancellations included flights between Gatwick, Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow, Barcelona, Pisa, Malaga, Athens, Venice, Milan and more.

TUI made an announcement that 180 flights would be cancelled from Manchester airport up until 30 June, including flights to many popular holiday destinations such as Alicante, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Palma and Zante.

Wizz Air said that a large number of flights from Doncaster airport would be cancelled.

Similar to the TUI cancellations, destinations affected by the Wizz Air cancellations include Tenerife, Malaga, Palma and Lanzarote.

Why are flights being cancelled?

The disruption seen in recent weeks has been put down to two factors: staff shortages and a surge in holidaymakers.

EasyJet has said it has been forced to make cancellations “due to the ongoing challenging operating environment” and Wizz Air also blamed the “current challenging operational environment in the travel industry”.

Wizz Air said that this “challenging operational environment” included “staff shortages within air traffic control and at airports”.

At the weekend, Jet2 boss Steve Heapy was in talks with Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps in relation to the challenges that the aviation industry has been facing.

Heapy blamed Brexit for the recent travel chaos, as airlines have struggled to hire enough staff due to the new visa rules.

A Jet2 spokesperson said: “During a meeting with government and industry on Friday, Mr Heapy expressed his frustrations with the current employment market as Brexit has taken hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people out of the job market and that is having an impact on many industries, including ours.”

Despite the staff shortages, the transport secretary is reported to have rejected calls from airlines to give them more powers to hire visa-free workers from Europe.