EasyJet says most passengers will fly on scheduled day as Gatwick cuts capacity

theguardian.com:

EasyJet has insisted it will get the vast majority of its passengers away this summer on the day they booked, after Gatwick was accused of panicking airline customers by announcing capacity cuts.

Flights currently on sale and scheduled will exceed the new limits on almost one in two days across July and August at London’s second airport, suggesting about 500 cancellations in total.

Airlines said they were still reviewing schedules and could not be sure how the enforced cancellations would affect them, leaving many booked holidaymakers uncertain over their travel plans.

The cap will be exceeded on most days around the start of the school holidays in late July, with flights currently scheduled to peak around 25 July, according to data from the analysts Cirium. However, only about 14 further departures may need to be cancelled out of more than 400 due that day.

In the past month, easyJet has already quietly cancelled almost 100 flights that were due to depart from Gatwick in the first week of the school holidays, according to data from aviation analysts OAG.

The move was announced by Gatwick on Friday to attempt to head off more chaos and last-minute cancellations, after hundreds of flights were scrapped at late notice during half-term by airlines.

Gatwick said it was limiting flights to 825 a day in July and 850 in August to force airlines into “more predictable and reliable flight programmes” for the summer holidays, when staffing issues would not be resolved at many aviation companies.

While regulators and business groups have called for more certainty and urged airlines to cancel earlier rather than risk more turmoil for passengers, consumer groups criticised the handling of the announcement.

Which? blamed the “drip feeding”