Updated
Faced with a cascade of employees affected by the Covid, the low-cost airline must reduce its offer. On Monday alone, 60 flights will be canceled.
Easyjet said it is concentrating its cancellations on destinations served by several flights.
REUTERS
British company Easyjet has canceled more than 200 flights since the weekend, while 60 more were canceled for Monday, largely due to employees sick with Covid-19. And the disruptions are expected to continue this week. “We have taken steps to mitigate the disruption by bringing in employees who weren’t due to work this weekend,” but the company had to resort to cancellations anyway, according to a spokesperson.
“Unfortunately new cancellations were necessary” for Monday and Tuesday, he added, apologizing on behalf of the low cost carrier. Easyjet said it is focusing its cancellations on destinations served by multiple flights, “to give customers more options to book a new trip, often for the same day.”
The company specifies that passengers can choose to modify their trip, receive a voucher or even request a full refund. But many passengers concerned complained on Twitter of flights canceled at the last moment and of difficulties in finding alternative solutions, in particular from Paris or Geneva.
Less than ten hours before departure
Simon Rudkins, 50, told PA he was due to return to the UK from a family ski trip to the Alps, but the airline contacted him less than ten hours before the departure from Lyon to notify him of the cancellation of the flight. ‘We called Easyjet to ask them for alternatives’ but ‘we were told, basically, ‘there is nothing, no flights at all. The best you can do is travel tomorrow,” he said.
The number of people infected with Covid-19 in the UK has reached a new record, according to estimates released on Friday, with 4.9 million people infected with the virus the previous week. The World Health Organization had criticized several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, at the end of March for having lifted their anti-Covid measures too “brutally”, with the consequence a marked increase in cases.
(AFP)