Travel disruption – live: Calls for automatic airline refunds grow as Wizz Air adds to advance cancellations

Queues are snaking out of St Pancras station this morning as people wait to get the Eurostar.

Travellers reported waiting for three hours yesterday, with Svenja O’Donnell saying: “The queue is through the whole station and down two blocks. We have been given very little information.”

Ryanair flights from Stansted could face serious disruption this summer, a union has warned.

Unite represents workers employed by the ground handler Blue Handling, which provides baggage handling, check-in and other services to Ryanair at Stansted.

Having been hit with a 10 per cent pay cut in 2020, employees have rejected a 4 per cent pay rise offer and could strike over the summer period if their demands are not met.

Blue Handling employs around 750 workers and handles around 200 flights a day during the summer holiday season.

A crunch meeting is due to take place today between union representatives and management.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Given the chaos in the airline sector, it is unbelievable and irresponsible that Blue Handling is still refusing to pay decent wages. Unite’s members are ready for strike action. We now expect Blue Handling to step up and pay these workers fairly.”

Shadow Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has accused the Government of being “missing in action” as queues at ports and airports continue to mount, hampering travel and trade.

Labour has written to the Government setting out steps to tackle the disruption causing chaos.

“Brits have been facing weeks of travel and trade disruption, and the Conservatives are missing in action,” said Ms Haigh.

“Tory Ministers can’t even get the basics right.

“They should show some responsibility, do their job, and take concrete steps to tackle the chaos growing on their watch.”

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As the UK and Ireland’s airports and airlines struggle to process the wave of holidaymakers jetting off this spring, a worrying image has emerged. Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Gatwick and Dublin have all seen worried customers waiting in longer than usual lines.

It’s understandable that you might want to check in as early as possible to avoid getting caught up in the chaos. However, airport bosses are warning that getting to the terminal too early can clog up queues and prevent people with earlier flights than yours getting through - adding even more to the stress levels.

So how early should you arrive for your flight?

See our guide for what the UK and Ireland’s airlines and airports are advising:

One easyJet passenger tweeted a photograph from Manchester Airport at 4am showing a long queue of people in a car park outside Terminal 1.

He described the situation as “carnage”, adding: “Took two hours 45 minutes to get through - most of that was bag drop. Now on the aircraft, but due to shortage of ground crew, there’s going to be another delay of approximately 50 minutes.”

British Airways has cancelled 114 short-haul flights to and from its main base, London Heathrow airport on Wednesday.

The Independent calculates 22 domestic flights have been grounded, including two round-trips from Heathrow to Aberdeen, Belfast City, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Ninety-two international flights are cancelled, including three round-trips from Heathrow to Amsterdam and holiday flights to Ibiza and Malaga.

Click here for the full list:

Travellers have been left devastated after they had their holidays suddenly cancelled while they were sat on their plane at Cardiff airport runway yesterday.

Holidaymakers had been hoping to get a flight to Tenerife with travel agency TUI. Their flight was due to take off at 1:25pm but was reportedly delayed by an hour. Families said they then had to wait another hour after boarding the plane because they were told it had a malfunctioning part, Wales Online reported.

They then received text messages and emails from TUI to tell them that their holiday had been cancelled.

One passenger Huw Davies said he had boarded the plane with 11 other family members for a holiday for his terminally ill daughter. He said he was left “absolutely devastated” after the trip was cancelled.

“This was a family outing for my daughter who has terminal cancer,” he told Wales Online. “It was going to be her last family holiday - and we just got booted off this flight. I think it’s a load of b****** that they’ve said the engine went down, because that plane had flown in from Alicante. If this part was obviously malfunctioning on the way into the airport, why the hell did they load us? Why did they go through the motions? They knew that that plane wasn’t going to take off.”

A spokesperson for TUI UK said on Wednesday: “We’d like to apologise to customers travelling on flight TOM6286 from Cardiff to Tenerife today which was unfortunately cancelled due to operational issues.

“Customers affected by flight cancellations will receive a full refund for their holiday within 14 days.”

They said that “unfortunately the increase in people going on holidays combined with various operational and supply chain issues, has meant that a small number of our flights have been impacted.”

A Florence-bound flight left Gatwick with no passengers onboard due to delays.

Vueling flight VY620 was due to depart at 8.20 pm on Monday, but ended up leaving two hours late without any travellers.

Passenger Nisha Gupta told PA news agency that she had queued for four hours to check-in her bag before being told she couldn’t board upon arriving at the gate.

“Eventually we were told by staff that the pilots made a decision to fly the plane back empty without a single passenger on board due to Florence airspace closing,” she said.

“We got to the airport at 3pm and did not leave until 2am after having to wait around to give details to the one staff member dealing with all cancelled flights, taking details and trying to book people into hotels.”

Police were called in to assist after a planeload of Tui passengers were “abandoned” on the tarmac at Manchester airport for three hours.

Flight TOM2106 was due to depart for Tenerife on Sunday evening before being delayed.

A staff shortage then led to travellers being stuck on the aircraft for hours before being escorted off.

In a video shared online, the flight’s pilot can be heard telling passengers: “Swissport have abandoned us”.

The travel chaos at UK airports this half term “could get worse” over the summer, unions have warned.

Deputy general secretary of Prospect union, Garry Graham, warned that holidaymakers may not have seen the worst of the disruption yet.

“Unions warned the government and aviation employers repeatedly that slashing staff through the crisis would lead to problems with the ramp-up post-pandemic,” he said.

“The government point to the furlough scheme but ignore that it ended well before the majority of international restrictions on travel came to an end. Now we see staff shortages across the industry, with huge reliance on overtime to get by day-to-day.

“In many areas, like air traffic control, overtime is only a temporary sticking plaster. So, things could get worse this summer before they get better.”