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Don’t be deterred by news of cancellations, urges Flight Centre

Flight Centre has urged travellers to book travel with confidence as its analysis of departures and cancellations suggest the situation is improving.

It said 2.4% of departures scheduled from the UK were cancelled in June – only marginally worse than the global average of 2%.

Justin Penny, head of air at the travel agency, studied statistics from data specialists OAG and Cirium to put the recent coverage of cancellations and disruption at airports into context.

He said Gatwick had the highest number of cancellations in June (430) – equating to 3.8% of its 11,298 departures – while Heathrow recorded 352 cancellations – 2% of its 17,156 scheduled flights.

The lowest number was at Stansted, which recorded 30 cancellations out of its 7,111 departures – a rate of 0.4%.

Looking at airlines, Penny said Eurowings “performed the worst” as it cancelled more than 16% of its services in June, with 60 out of 370 flights not departing.

EasyJet had the highest overall number of cancellations (742) but this represented 4.6% of its scheduled departures.

Virgin Atlantic reported no flight cancellations in June, according to Penny.

“It continues to be a challenging period for travel operators,” he said. “Should this stop people from looking to travel? The answer is no.”

He said the situation is improving as more resources come on stream, adding: “We are confident that a very high percentage of flights will continue to follow this trend and hundreds of thousands of people, every day across the UK will be able to travel for work and holidays.”

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