Travel chaos as EasyJet cancels ONE HUNDRED flights today due to Covid leaving passengers furious

EASYJET has cancelled around 100 flights today, leaving travellers furious.

The cancellations by the budget airline were caused by staff absence due to Covid.

The airline said it had tried to solve the problem by using standby crew but decided to make “some cancellations in advance”.

Sixty-two of the cancelled flights were set to take off from the UK.

Brits have been venting their fury online, saying they are now stuck overseas with no way to get home.

One person on Twitter wrote: “Do not fly EasyJet, we are stranded in Marseilles, some people since this morning due to previous cancelled flights! Flight now MAYBE 1am, was due to fly at 10pm, people in the airport are furious!”

Another simply said: “Cancelled our flights to Geneva too!”

EasyJet said the cancellations were a small part of its schedule on Monday, which is around 1,645 flights.

A spokesman for EasyJet said on Sunday: "As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness.

"Unfortunately it has been necessary to make some additional cancellations for today and tomorrow. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

“We have made 62 pre-emptive cancellations for flights to and from the UK for tomorrow which represents a small proportion of tomorrow’s total flying programme which was planned to be more than 1,645 flights. We cancelled the majority of these yesterday.”

Affected customers have been contacted and have the option to rebook on alternative flights or receive a voucher or refund.

It comes after Brit holidaymakers planning to get away for the Easter break were warned to expect longer than usual queues at airports due to staff shortages.

The Airport Operators Association (AOA) has warned travellers they should expect delays if they are taking a trip at peak times.

Airports and airlines were hit hard during the pandemic, as many staff lost their jobs or moved into other industries.

As a consequence, airports have been put under strain, and they are expected to struggle as thousands of Brits jet off for a foreign holiday over Easter.

British Airways passengers have experienced a lot of travel chaos in recent weeks due to a series of IT failures.

On Wednesday, more than 40 flights were cancelled due to a technical issue, which had a knock on effect on passengers.

That was the second major IT problem British Airways has suffered in two months.

In February, more than 500 flights were disrupted after the flagship carrier suffered its biggest IT failure for years.

Heathrow came under fire last week after passengers were stuck in "quarter of a mile" long queues.

A spokesperson for the airport admitted they had experienced delays processing passengers at Terminal 5, which has caused the huge lines.