People returning to UK after half-term holidays face disruption and delays

theguardian.com:

Travellers returning to the UK at the end of half-term holiday faced another day of disruption and long delays on Saturday.

Twenty-five departures and 22 arrivals from Gatwick airport were cancelled, affecting at least 7,000 passengers.

A Gatwick spokesperson said the disruption was in large part because departures did not leave, so could not return.

“Poor weather across Europe does mean air traffic control restrictions have been placed on airspace across the continent,” the spokesperson said.

“This is causing delays and is the reason for some of the cancellations. Many UK airports will be impacted by this.”

The vast majority of cancellations from Gatwick were on Saturday, including easyJet flights to and from Nice, Seville, Milan and Amsterdam. British Airways and Wizz Air flights are also understood to have been cancelled.

The spokesperson said there were no significant queues at the airport.

At Bristol airport, where passengers were pictured on Friday waiting in queues described as horrific, easyJet cancelled flights to Berlin, Biarritz, Nice and Prague, according to the Independent. The carrier earlier said it had cancelled at least 30 services on Saturday.

A spokesperson said: “easyJet will operate around 1,700 flights carrying around a quarter of a million customers each day over the bank holiday weekend, with a small proportion cancelled in advance either last week or overnight and informed of their options to rebook or receive a refund.

“Airlines continue to operate in a challenging environment including with air traffic control restrictions operating today at London Gatwick and issues with ground operations at several airports including at Amsterdam where the airport has requested airlines to cancel some flying today. As