Travel chaos as more than 100 flights cancelled at London airports

BRITAIN-HEALTH-VIRUS-AVIATION
AFP via Getty Images
Sami Quadri10 April 2022

Holidaymakers are facing further travel chaos after airlines cancelled more than a hundred flights on Sunday.

British Airways and easyJet cancelled the flights from Heathrow and Gatwick.

Around 15,000 to 20,000 passengers are believed to have been impacted by the widespread cancellations.

The airlines have blamed the ongoing cancellations on staff shortages caused by covid-related absences.

BA says passengers were given notice of a week or two of flight cancellations, due to resourcing issues.

British Airways has not made on-the-day cancellations.

Meanwhile the suspension of P&O services at the Dover terminal as well as bad weather, Easter traffic and IT issues has caused congestion chaos.

The British Meat Processors Association, has called for priority for perishable goods to make the crossing to France.

They say some members have had to wait for over 24 hours to cross, causing meat and other perishables to go bad.

A spokesperson from the organisation said that the suspension of the ferries had combined with other issues to create a “perfect storm” of problems with the export process.

“The priority for the authorities should be to help lorries with perishable goods get through as quickly as possible.

“Shelf life is being lost which costs money and creates waste and business will be lost if this continues,” he said.

“We need the authorities to review the situation as soon as possible and take some appropriate actions.”

Meat haulier Eardley International told the BBC lorries were experiencing delays of “20 to 25 hours to cross the Channel”.

The company, based in Lockerbie, Scotland, takes fresh meat from the UK into Europe.

“Our products have a very short shelf life,” company director Graham Eardley told the BBC, adding that the delays were costing the business up to £800 per lorry.

“If we load lamb in the UK on a Monday, we’d expect to deliver that product to Germany on a Tuesday.

“Now we are seeing delays of 20 to 25 hours to cross the Channel, and the quality and the sale value of that product falls by every hour it is delayed.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in