Manchester Airport passengers now face MORE disruption as easyJet cancels hundreds of flights

Hundreds of easyJet flights were cancelled over the weekend - and the airline said disruption is expected to last into this week, meaning passengers at Manchester Airport could face even more chaos.

The airline has cancelled at least 222 trips across the country since Friday, leaving some passengers stranded. It blamed the problems on high levels of sickness among employees caused by Covid.

It said it had made efforts to offset staff shortages by 'rostering' additional standby crew on the weekend but was forced to make 'additional cancellations for today (Sunday) and tomorrow'. A total of 62 flights scheduled for today (Monday) have been pulled, the majority of which were announced at short notice on Saturday.

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According to traffic alert service Inrix, some of these cancelled flights are from Manchester Airport. The airline has said that affected passengers will be contacted.

An easyJet spokesperson said: "As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness. We have taken action to mitigate this through the rostering of additional standby crew this weekend, however, with the current levels of sickness we have also decided to make some cancellations in advance which were focused on consolidating flights where we have multiple frequencies so customers have more options to rebook their travel, often on the same day.

"Unfortunately it has been necessary to make some additional cancellations for today and tomorrow. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to customers on affected flights. We have made 62 pre-emptive