Most reliable airports & airlines as EasyJet and BA cancel 40,000 flights this summer – the answer may surprise you
THE most reliable airports and airlines have been revealed after EasyJet and BA recently cancelled 40,000 flights in total.
Passengers have faced massive delays, cancellations and missing luggage during a turbulent year for the aviation industry.
Much of the chaos is being caused by staff shortages as the travel industry picks up after Covid lockdowns.
And holidaymakers would well be forgiven for fearing the worst when heading abroad, with even more travel problems predicted this summer.
Here's everything you need to know before you jet off.
In terms of airports, travel data companies have reported that Stansted has had the fewest cancellations in June 2022, with Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds Bradford also performing well.
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Only 0.5 per cent of flights were cancelled within 72 hours of departing at Stansted.
Out of the other popular London airports, Heathrow has done marginally better than Gatwick.
Southampton and London City Airport were the worst performing airports with both having just over 6% of flights cancelled.
And data collected from May 1 to July 4 reveals that the best airlines, with fewest cancellations are Jet2.com and Ryanair, reports
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Jet2 has only had a mere 11 departures cancelled out of a total of 9,299 in that time period — making it a great choice for a summer getaway.
But other airlines did not fare as well. Between these dates, EasyJet was the worst offender, cancelling a whopping 1,144 flights within 72 hours of departure.
And British Airways scrapped 670 flights, leaving holidaymakers' plans in ruins.
It comes after EasyJet axed around 10,000 flights between July and September, affecting 1.5 million people.
And things will get worse with the airline's cabin crew in Spain due to walkout on two separate dates later this month.
EasyJet spokesman Andy Cockburn said: "Delivering a safe and reliable operation in this challenging operating environment so we can take our customers away on their holidays this summer is easyJet’s highest priority.
"We have taken pre-emptive actions to build further resilience over summer and ensure we deliver for our customers, including some advance cancellations with most customers rebooked on alternative flights, as well as extending our customer service hours and adding more people to our customer service team than ever before to help our customers."
Meanwhile, British Airways have removed nearly 30,000 flights from its April-to-October schedule in response to staffing problems.
13 per cent of flights were cancelled in this time period with as many as 4.5 million passengers affected.
About a million existing bookings on domestic and European routes from London Heathrow, Gatwick and City airports have been cancelled.
A BA spokeswoman said: "We're completely focused on building resilience into our operation to give customers the certainty they deserve.
"New flexibility means that we can further reduce our schedule and consolidate some of our quieter services so that we can protect as many of our holiday flights as possible.
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"While most of our flights are unaffected and the majority of customers will get away as planned, we're doing everything we can to get their travel plans back on track.
"We're in touch to apologise and offer rebooking options for new flights with us or another airline as soon as possible or issue a full refund."