Simon Calder discusses disruption to 50,000 passengers at Gatwick and Heathrow on weekend of travel chaos

Travel update: Over 300 flights cancelled at Gatwick and Heathrow airportsMixed

Transcript

00:00It's been an absolutely miserable weekend for, I reckon, about 50,000 passengers who have had their flights cancelled.

00:09The largest number has been on British Airways.

00:11I'm up to about 265 cancellations between Friday and Monday.

00:17Almost all of them short-haul European and domestic flights.

00:22We've also seen 120 cancellations so far at Gatwick.

00:27That was entirely due to problems that we had with the air traffic control tower there.

00:34A staff absence at short notice meant that there were reduced flow rates at what is the busiest single runway airport in the world.

00:43As a result of that, I reckon about another 15, maybe 20,000 people have had their flights axed.

00:52Still lots of problems today, but it is squarely British Airways at Heathrow, some at Gatwick, some at London City.

01:00But on top of that, a lot of cancellations, particularly at Gatwick on EasyJet.

01:05Good luck, everybody.