EasyJet cancels more than 200 flights over Covid staff sickness

Some passengers were left stranded at some of Britain's biggest airports after EasyJet canceled more than 200 flights over the weekend.

The airline axed 222 trips since Friday because of high levels of sickness among employees caused by Covid.

It was forced to make additional cancellation on Sunday and Monday because of staff shortages.

An Easter sunshine rush won't guarantee a bright future for BA.

Most of the flights that were announced on Saturday have been pulled.

As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness.

We have made 62 pre-emptive cancellation for flights to and from the UK for Monday, which is a small proportion of the total flying programme. The majority of these were canceled on Saturday.

The PA news agency confirmed that 222 flights were canceled over the weekend.

Some people were stuck abroad with no explanation or alternative route home.

Passengers were stuck in long lines at the airport on Sunday as the Easter holidays got under way.

The congestion was caused by high passenger volumes and Covid checks.

There were reports of staff shortages and problems with the e-gate passport checkpoint as travellers took to social media to complain, with some saying they had waited hours to take off.

Several of the automatic e-gates, staffed by Border Force and used to process passengers, weren't functioning properly according to other travellers.

There was a technical issue with the checkpoint which has since been fixed, and the Home Office said the problem did not cause queue lengths to exceed the standard length.

Due to high passenger volumes and the Covid documentation checks still required by many end destinations, Terminal 2 departures have experienced some congestion today.

Manchester Airport has had to cope with delays due to staff shortages and has experienced similar problems in recent weeks.