Departing flights from UK airports this Easter weekend are due to hit 78% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, new data reveals.
More than 9,200 flights are scheduled to take off from airports across the country – equating to 1.63 million seats – illustrating strong signs of recovery from the pandemic, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
A total of 11,743 scheduled departures were recorded from UK airports over Easter weekend in 2019.
The busiest day of the four-day holiday weekend is expected to be Good Friday when 2,430 flights are set to depart from the UK.
This is more than 1,000 up on the 1,363 scheduled departures over Easter last year and more than 800% up on Easter weekend 2020 when there were just 984 flights taking off due to the impact of Covid-19.
The largest airline by departing UK flights this Easter weekend is scheduled to be easyJet – with 1,952 departures.
This is closely followed by British Airways with 1,648, and Ryanair with 1,588.
The route with the most scheduled flights is to be Heathrow to New York JFK, followed by Heathrow to Dublin and Amsterdam, the data shows.
The statistics emerged amid concern over daily flight cancellations due to staff shortages and Covid-related absences.
Senior industry sources quoted by The Times suggested that it was taking up to six months to vet new security staff, cabin crew and baggage handlers as the aviation sector rebuilds from the Covid crisis.
But a government source denied it was responsible for long delays in vetting staff, insisting that the checks carried out by the Cabinet Office were done in a fraction of the time claimed by the industry.
Which? Travel editor Rory Boland said: “Woefully understaffed airlines have booked far more flights than they can operate this Easter, with passengers of British Airways and EasyJet seeming to be the worst affected.
“In the event of cancellations at short notice, airlines must uphold affected passengers’ legal rights to at least £220 in compensation and a refund or rerouting options, and provide refreshments and accommodation as required.
“We’ve seen numerous examples of carriers failing to inform their customers of these rights, which highlights why the Civil Aviation Authority must be given stronger powers to act when airlines consistently break the rules.”