UK weather: Hundreds more flights cancelled across Britain as travel turmoil continues

Sixty easyJet flights to and from Bristol airport have been cancelled as severe weather moves southwest, grounding around 10,000 passengers — many of them at overseas airports.

While some early flights from Bristol took off normally, the prospect of severe weather has led to the grounding of the rest of the day’s programme.

The destinations include Tenerife, Gibraltar and Stockholm — all locations from which alternative travel is difficult to arrange.

Passengers whose flights are cancelled or heavily delayed by bad weather are not entitled to cash compensation, but the airline must provide meals and, if necessary, overnight accommodation to stranded travellers.

Many easyJet flights from Gatwick, its biggest base, and its headquarters airport of Luton, are also grounded.

The airline said: “As a result of the adverse weather conditions which are still affecting the UK and Europe we are expecting disruption to many flights.

“We strongly advise all passengers due to travel today continue to check their flight status by using Flight Tracker and avoid travelling to the airport if your flight is cancelled.”

For passengers abroad, easyJet has a policy of booking passengers on rival airlines if it cannot rebook within 48 hours of the original trip.

Ryanair has cancelled all its flights to and from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports for the rest of the day.

The airline, which is Europe’s biggest budget carrier, said: “Due to continuing adverse weather conditions, Ryanair expects further flight delays and cancellations at airports today and tomorrow.

“We are doing everything we can to reaccommodate customers and we apologise for any inconvenience caused by these disruptions which are entirely outside of our control.”

In Ireland, Ryanair has cancelled all its flights to and from Cork and Kerry, as well as a number of flights serving its home airport, Dublin.

Flybe has cancelled all flights serving Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jersey and Guernsey all day. Departures from Cardiff after 2pm and Exeter after 3pm are also grounded.

Cancellations are building at Heathrow, where 200 of today’s arrivals and departures were proactively grounded yesterday. Aer Lingus has cancelled flights to and from Cork and Shannon. British Airways has cancelled an additional service to New York and one departure to Los Angeles.

Some flights inbound to Heathrow are heavily delayed, which could have a knock-on effect on later services. The BA early morning arrival from Geneva is five hours late, with arrivals from Berlin, Milan, Munich and Aberdeen running over two hours late.