UK Airports Thrown Into Chaos As Airlines Ground Flights

Monday, 4 April 2022 16:09

By Sky News

Huge queues began forming at two of England's major airports this morning (Monday), as soaring COVID cases forced flight delays and cancellations for British Airways and easyJet.

Manchester and London Heathrow airports have seen widespread delays in the last 24 hours, after easyJet cancelled 62 flights and British Airways cut 115 of its journeys for Monday.

It comes after chaotic weekends for both airports, as the school Easter holidays get underway.

Pictures from Manchester on social media showed long snaking queues throughout one of the departure halls from around 5am on Monday morning, with travellers complaining about the delays on Twitter.

Posting an image at 6am, Twitter user Gareth called the queues "chaos" and said there was "no organisation", even claiming some people had missed their flights.

Heathrow's Terminal 5 was also hit by long queues

Other photos show lines of people stretched across departure halls as they wait for check-in and security desks to open.

EasyJet, which uses Manchester as one of its bases, tweeted to say it was aware of the delays there, while the airport itself advised people to arrive in plenty of time to check-in.

In Heathrow, Scottish athlete Kirsty Law posted a video of the disruption in one of the airport's security checkpoints, which showed a line of people trying to move through the terminal.

😩😩 security at Heathrow Airport 👌🏻 pic.twitter.com/Lm7VLoLlXZ
— Kirsty Law (@Kirstylawdiscus) April 4, 2022

Another Twitter user said his flight was cancelled just minutes before the gate was due to open and he was rebooked on a flight in the evening without any notice.

Problems also continued on cross-channel trains, with Eurotunnel in Kent warning of delays.

It said passengers could face up to three hours of disruption after a train was "stopped temporarily in the tunnel".

Queues were seen stretching for miles in Kent over the weekend

Eurostar services also appeared to be facing disruption, with pictures on social media showing passengers being forced to wait outside its Amsterdam station as they queue to board trains.

There were also problems on the seas, with the fallout from the P&O crisis continuing.

Over the weekend, pictures emerged of the long queues of lorries and cars on the M20 heading towards Dover, due to P&O Ferries still not running services, and two DFDS ships being out of action.

Operation Brock is in place on the road to help manage the traffic levels.