Which flights tend to be the ones being cancelled at the moment?

[Abraxan]

Looking at booking our holiday for the summer and trying to see if certain flights/countries where the flight cancellations seem to be happening more.

Is it tending to be short haul more than long haul?
Is it airport specific? Or is it destination country specific?
I know TUI have cancelled holidays, are the other flight companies doing it too and if so, are any particular bad at the moment?

We have travel insurance, etc but would like to reduce the chances as much as possible from the outset if we can.

I know I can Google and I will. But figured I'd ask MN too in the meantime.

We are fairly undecided in where we want to go right now, just know it'll be a summer holidays fortnight (I teach) and somewhere hot, possibly long haul.

Ryanair have not cancelled a single flight.

No surprise there I don't think they ever stopped flying even during lockdowns.

There was someone from Jet2 speaking on the news a week or so ago. He said that they hadn’t cancelled any fights and only employ their own staff (not subcontracted or via agencies etc) so maybe they could be worth looking at? Don’t think they do long haul though.

You might be right but would you excuse me for being slightly sceptical about that claim...no cancellations across their entire fairly massive network, no aircraft breaking, no weather problems, no crews going out of hours...?

They've certainly done the same with their schedule as BA have at our local regional airport and reduced frequency of services.

With regard to lockdown few if any airlines stopped completely but pretty much all of them massively reduced flight numbers/schedules, and often restricted themselves to either flying empty aircraft on short training details to keep crew recent (Ryanair certainly did that) and/or flew cargo only operations. Nobody had an unscathed schedule in 2020.

The "own staff" claim got quite a lot of press....

Makes sense at a busy home base (BA did/might still do similar, certainly at some of the LHR terminals such as T5) because there's plenty of aircraft movements.

OTOH I'd genuinely be interested to know if Jet2 are really directly employing their own dedicated staff for ground handling at outstations overseas which might only see one/two/three Jet2 turnarounds a day...I'd be impressed if they are.

I heard both Ryanair and BA staff are planning on strikes over the summer. I'm in the same boat OP and trying to mitigate risk.

I think I'm going to avoid Gatwick, BA, EasyJet and Tui. I avoid Ryanair anyway. Considering trying to go somewhere out of City Airport as that tends to run smoothly but more pricey. Also looking at driving or ferry options. I think once you factor in 4 flights & car rental, ferry isn't that much more to Spain.

Aren't the strikes at Heathrow, if they happen? It's honestly anyone's guess as to what to do for the best this summer, I think.

I don't think Jet2 does long haul, which I think we are most likely to go s summer.

We flew EasyJet out of luton Sunday at the start of half term. No problems on our flight and I think there was only 1 showing as cancelled.

What about taking the Eurostar to France/Belgium/Holland? Better for the environment too.

We have done the tunnel a few times in the last, but want to go further afield this summer.

You can get the train to Italy, Spain, Croatia for example

friends just got back from Greece, they were supposed to fly Friday night at 11.3 and when they got to the gate they were then told they wouldn't be flying until Saturday night - you could get a fair way on a train in 24 hrs

ferry isn't that much more to Spain.

1600 for a car and 4 passengers return 15 days in summer holidays. 20 hrs sailing - which is actually pleasant trip and part of the holiday

We really do fancy somewhere different to where we've been before, ideally, this summer and tbh it's most likely to be long haul having spoken more with dh and dd.

Waking this thread up in light of today's Gatwick announcement. I think in fact that it's not that many flights per day that will be cut, but I'd love to know if anyone can predict which carriers/routes might go?

We leave summer holiday booking way too late. I have close family we need to see in Portugal, as well as spending time in the place I love and have been almost every year of my life .... and flights are really jacked up in price this year. At least £600/700 more than we normally pay. Plus now I'm concerned about Gatwick. We almost always fly TAP (Portugal's national carrier) as they're scheduled and reliable. So I'd hoped that they wouldn't be affected by the flight slashing - now with today's news about Gatwick I'm worried. (TAP flights out of Heathrow are already very booked up.)

GlomOfNit Is over night train any good?

Watching with interest as we want a short hall family holiday in 2 weeks. Nearest airport Birmingham. I've been abroad three times in the last 16 years as I'm fearful of flying. Two by coach, one by train. The Eurostar was so expensive and got stuck in Marseilles for 8 hours due to an ill passenger.
Not exactly feeling thrilled, but this is the only year we can do non term time due to GcSEs. One of my children doesn't have his second vaccine yet either, so this puts an extra layer of trickiness in with Spain.

Haul!

I think the hope with the Gatwick news is it at least means it might be managed in advance so less last minute cancellations. But we shall see!

my flight at half term from Heathrow with BA was cancelled - it was 4 weeks in advance and I was able to move to a later flight that day. Not ideal as it meant I missed almost a day of my holiday but at least I had some warning. Hopefully - although still pretty crap - the Gatwick decision might mean easyJet can more proactively manage in advance. Although none of this makes for a relaxing look forwards to a holiday vibe!

Gatwick have capped the number of flights, this could have been done by all airports back in March to prevent some of the chaos for half term and summer school holidays

We flew from Manchester at the start of June. It was the short haul flights that were getting cancelled, budget type airlines. We were flying long haul, emirates, and it was fine

A lot of Turkey holidays seem to have been getting cancelled and the 11 night holidays.

Although I'm now in Greece flew from Manchester and the issue was lack of staffing at security. That was the only hold up and nearly a 3 hr delay.

I've never booked with Jet2 but again it's the security issues for everyone. I would try Jet2 though.

I have a third-hand (first voucher, rebooked, now cancelled) Easyjet flight from Easter 2020 which is offering no flights from Bergamo, Treviso or Venice on the one day I need to travel.

It looks like Ryanair is getting my money again…

@GlomOfNit I think we flew TAP from City Airport once, a joyous experience as both a nice airline and airport - worth checking out.

We’re flying with Virgin from Manchester this summer hols. Not heard of any issues with them and I’m watching it closely! I’ve paid for fast track security and upgraded our seats so we get priority check in and boarding.