EasyJet refuses compensation to up to 3,000 passengers hit by last-minute flight cancellations

The budget airline easyJet cancelled more than 20 flights to and from Gatwick yesterday - with some passengers having boarded the plane and waited for hours before their service was cancelled.

Now the airline is refusing some passengers compensation, saying cancellations were as a result of “extraordinary circumstances” caused by air traffic control (ATC).

The routes affected during the afternoon and evening of 24 May included the London hub to the Isle of Man, Belfast, Tenerife, Crete airports Heraklion and Larnaca, and Palma.

Although many customers have reported losing out on hundreds of pounds due to having to rebook flights with other airlines, unused hotel accommodation abroad, emergency accommodation near the airport and repeated transfers to and from the airport, easyJet has said it cannot cover these costs.

This is the message hundreds of easyJet passengers received after their flight cancellations: “We’re sorry that your flight has been cancelled. This is due to air traffic control restrictions which resulted in crew on your flight reaching their maximum legal working hours.

“There are strict industry wide rules on the number of hours the crew are allowed to work. To protect the safety of our customers and crew these cannot be exceeded. As a result we had no option but to cancel your flight.

“The disruption to your flight is outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance.”

However, many passengers say that they were given little explanation for the delays to their flight which led to staff hitting the limit of their legal working hours. Several say that the words “air traffic control” were never mentioned as they waited for updates.

The Caine family spent Tuesday night on the floor of Gatwick Airport after their second flight in 48 hours was cancelled by easyJet.

Meanwhile, passengers en route to Larnaca boarded their flight at 3pm only to wait three hours on the tarmac, with their flight cancelled at 5.30pm and disembarkation occuring at 6pm.

The planeload of customers then spent more than three-and-a-half hours waiting for their luggage at baggage claim.

A Gatwick airport spokesperson tells The Independent: “Bad weather (thunderstorms etc) across the UK and Europe meant that air traffic control restrictions were put on flights departing the airport, which limited the number that could leave at certain points in the day. I believe the poor weather also impacted flights at airports right across the UK and Europe.”

An easyJet spokesperson told The Independent that air traffic control slot restrictions were “the main causal factor” for yesterdays cancellations “due to weather”. They added that this pushed crew over their legal working hours, and that curfews at some of the destination airports (Berlin, Hamburg and Zurich among them) had been a factor in the cancellations.

They added: “We always aim to minimise the impact on our customers, providing them with the options to transfer to an alternative flight free of charge, or receive a refund or a voucher. Our customer team has been in touch with the family to talk them through their options.”