Airlines can ill afford the damage mounting flight cancellations are doing to customer confidence

Expect an announcement any day now that Britain’s biggest budget airline – easyJet – will axe thousands of summer flights in a bid to keep the rest on track, writes Simon Calder

At least 60 UK flights were grounded by easyJet alone on Tuesday (PA)

With half-term hostilities over, I fondly imagined the airlines would promptly get home the many travellers caught up in the hundreds of short-notice flight cancellations over the bank holiday weekend, then regroup to face the summer ahead.

Instead, by Tuesday afternoon the cancellation crisis was getting even worse – with at least 60 UK flights being grounded by easyJet alone, leaving an estimated 10,000 people in the wrong place. As I totted up the cancelled flights at Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and Scottish airports, a text arrived from a friend. “Trying to book a flight to Athens for July. There’s a Jet2 direct from Birmingham. Too risky? Should I play it safe and go with Lufthansa via Frankfurt?”

The message sums up the damage being done to the reputation of the UK’s aviation industry – which before the coronavirus pandemic was genuinely world-beating – and to passengers’ confidence.