Thousands of holidaymakers are facing disruption to their summer plans after easyJet scrapped around 1,700 flights.

Around 180,000 customers are affected by the cancellations, which mainly affect flights in and out of Gatwick over the next three months.

The company says 95% of them have been rebooked onto alternative flights, and that the remaining 9,000 will be given new seats later on Monday.

It was not immediately clear how many affected passengers were given flights on the same day as their original flights.

Those who aren’t happy with the rebookings are entitled to refunds.

EasyJet denied reported claims that the decision was forced by pilot shortages, instead blaming problems with air traffic control that affect ‘the whole industry’.

But according to The Independent, easyJet cancelled more than four times more Gatwick flights on Saturday than all its rivals at the airport combined.

The company is considerably more exposed to problems at Gatwick than others as it accounts for more than half of the airport’s traffic.

Have you been affected by cancellations or last-minute changes to your easyJet booking? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected].

A spokesperson for easyJet said: ‘We are currently operating up to around 1800 flights and carrying around 250,000 customers per day with more crew and pilots flying than ever before and like all airlines, we review our flights on an ongoing basis.

‘As Eurocontrol has stated, the whole industry is seeing challenging conditions this summer with more constrained air space due to the war in Ukraine resulting in unprecedented ATC delays, as well as further potential ATC strike action.

‘We have therefore made some pre-emptive adjustments to our programme consolidating a small number of flights at Gatwick, where we have multiple daily frequencies, in order to help mitigate these external challenges on the day of travel for our customers and we continue to operate around over 90,000 flights over this period.

‘Customers whose flights are affected are being informed, with 95% customers being rebooked onto an alternative flight and all customers provided with the option to rebook or receive a refund.

‘We are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused.’

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