Half-term travellers struggle as flights cancelled and road delays expected

Travelers hoping to enjoy a half-term break have been hit by cancelled and overbooking flights.

The passengers were angry after easyJet canceled more than 200 flights from the airport at short notice during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. The budget Spanish airline Vueling has been flooded with complaints from passengers bumped off overbooked flights.

The airlines and the airport blamed each other for the canceled flights.

Mark MacKinnon, the London correspondent for Canada's Globe and Mail, was one of dozens of passengers who were prevented from boarding a flight. He said that they were kicked off of VY7833 and are waiting for someone to tell them how to get to Barcelona.

People are being bumped off all over the place. I've been covering Ukraine for a long time, so this isn't hardship, but the disorganization in Gatwick is amazing, and selling 27 extra seats on a mid-term break flight to Barcelona feels like a scam.

The scenes at the airport on Monday morning were crazy, after the flight to Belfast that she and her boyfriend had booked was canceled on Sunday. The couple went to see an Abba concert in London on Friday, but were forced to return home via Glasgow.

Ferguson said they were due to be at the airport yesterday for a seven o'clock flight. We were told the flight was canceled when we tried to use our boarding passes.

She said that the girl on the check-in desk was pretty stressed out because people had been giving her grief all day. A member of staff was giving out a two-page document on what to do next.

Ferguson and her partner were offered a hotel room 90 minutes away. She said that they were given a room near the airport only after they got through to the airline by phone.

Ferguson spoke from Glasgow airport after a 5am flight on Monday. Some people were losing their minds at the airport, and you could see the faces of the poor staff. It wasn't their fault. My patience is getting a bit thin. I just want to go to bed.

There were at least 32 flights that were canceled on Monday.

Chris Turner, a drummer with the heavy metal group Orange Goblin, was stranded in Germany after two easyJet flights were canceled.

After his flight from Berlin was canceled, he traveled to Hamburg, where the flight was also grounded. The airline canceled his flight home from Berlin with less than 24 hours notice. Rearranged to a flight from Hamburg today, I was told the train journey was also canceled with less than 6 hours notice. I'm stuck here. What will you do?

He wondered if they would do anything this time or leave us abandoned.

Alan Black, from Havant in Hampshire, was stuck at the airport on Monday after his easyJet flight from a family wedding in Seville was canceled. He said the company had treated passengers poorly and that easyJet staff blamed a shortage of baggage staff for the cancellation.

A student from Caen in northern France is applying for compensation after her easyJet flight was canceled on Sunday night. She said that the airline was blaming Gatwick for the cancellation and that no reason was given.

She was told by the airport that airlines decide on flight cancellation. You will have to return to your airline.

Dozens of stranded passengers have been referred to the EasyJet disruption help hub.

The airline has decided to cancel around 24 flights per day between 28 May and 6 June. We are very sorry for the late notice of some of the canceled flights. This is necessary to provide reliable services during this busy period.

Air traffic control restrictions at the airport made it difficult for us to operate our flying programme last night. The advance cancellation that was made last week is unrelated to this.

Mark Plowright, a stranded Tui ticket-holder, felt let down by the travel company after being stuck at Gatwick all day on Sunday. Various operational reasons and an extremely busy weekend of planned flying caused the disruption.

We would like to apologize to some of our customers who have experienced flight delays recently.

While flight delays and cancellation with us are rare, the sudden increase in people going on holidays combined with various operational and supply chain issues has meant that a small number of our flights have been impacted.

There was some security queueing at the airport this morning, but it dissipated quickly.