EasyJet is to cut more flights over the summer after London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol airports placed caps on the number of flights allowed to operate in the coming months.
Gatwick announced last week it was capping daily flights at 825 in July and 850 in August, which is down from the usual total of 900 flights per day.
The airport’s move is an attempt to create a “more predictable and reliable” schedule this summer after suffering operational problems due to a shortage of staff in recent weeks.
Meanwhile Schiphol is also restricting the number of passengers allowed to use the airport this summer. Passenger numbers are being capped at 67,500 per day in July and 72,500 during August, meaning that an average of 13,500 seats per day will have to be removed by airlines in July.
The Amsterdam-based airport said: “Not intervening would mean unmanageable queues and many travellers would miss their flight.”
EasyJet said it was now reducing its overall schedule between July and September to 90 per cent of 2019 levels. The airline had previously planned to operate up to 97 per cent of 2019 capacity.
Johan Lundgren, easyJet’s CEO, said: “Delivering a safe and reliable operation for our customers in this challenging environment is easyJet’s highest priority and we are sorry that for some customers we have not been able to deliver the service they have come to expect from us.
“The ongoing challenging operating environment has unfortunately continued to have an impact which has resulted in cancellations.
“Coupled with airport caps, we are taking pre-emptive actions to increase resilience over the balance of summer, including a range of further flight consolidations in the affected airports, giving advance notice to customers and we expect the vast majority to be rebooked on alternative flights within 24 hours.”