French air traffic strikes and poor weather cause mayhem for British holidaymakers heading for Europe

A wide range of routes to and from the UK are affected

Ryanair launched a petition demanding that strike action be limited (Getty)

A combination of poor weather and striking French air-traffic controllers has caused mayhem for airline passengers, while train travellers in South-East England are being hit with widespread cancellations after flooding in the early hours of Thursday.

Airlines including British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair had already pre-emptively cancelled dozens of flights linking the UK with France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy because of the stoppage by controllers of the busiest skies in Europe.

Eurocontrol in Brussels said the industrial action is “particularly affecting the north of the country.” Ryanair cancelled more than 50 flights, include services from Newcastle to Malaga and Stansted to Madrid. British Airways axed around 30 flights to a range of destinations in southern Europe - particularly Barcelona and Madrid, but also to Rome and Venice. Among the easyJet cancellations were services from Gatwick to Milan, Marseille and Nantes.

But poor weather especially at Heathrow reduced capacity, with delays to the first wave of flights reverberating to cause cancellations later in the day. Domestic flights to and from Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle and Edinburgh, as well as services to Frankfurt and Basel, were cancelled.

Eurocontrol also warned that Amsterdam airport was experiencing high delays “because of single runway operations due to weather.”

Hundreds of thousands of commuters face frustration after the torrential rain that accompanied overnight thunderstorms in South-East England.

The worst affected line is between London Liverpool Street and Ilford, closed because of flooding. It serves Essex and East Anglia. Passengers between London and Norwich are being told to travel via London King’s Cross, Cambridge and Ely. All ticket restrictions have been lifted by Abellio Greater Anglia, and tickets for Thursday will also be valid on Friday.

South West Trains, which is the main operator from Europe’s busiest station, Waterloo, has urged passengers not to travel.

The Gatwick Express was out of commission for most of the morning, because of flooding in South London. When it restarted, some journeys took three times as long as the timetabled 30 minutes.

A failure of the train information system at Gatwick led to many passengers boarding the wrong trains. Other services on the London-Brighton main line were cancelled because of a continuing shortage of train crews.