In a trading update on Monday (20 June), the carrier said efforts to "proactively consolidate" its schedule would limit third-quarter (three months to 30 June 2022) capacity to 87% of 2019 levels, and Q4 (three months to 30 September) to 90%. EasyJet had previously planned to operate 97% of 2019 capacity during Q4.

"The aviation industry across Europe is experiencing operational issues with root causes similar to the post-Covid supply chain issues being seen in many other parts of the economy," said easyJet.

"The challenges include air traffic control delays and staff shortages in ground handling and at airports, resulting in increased aircraft turnaround times and delayed departures which have a knock-on effect resulting in flight cancellations.

"A very tight labour market for the whole eco-system including crew, compounded by increased ID checking times, has reduced planned resilience further. This is reflected in the flight caps announced recently at two of our biggest airports, Gatwick and Amsterdam."

However, despite what easyJet described as an "unprecedented ramp-up" in operations and demand, the airline said it still plans to operate around 140,000 flights carrying 22 million passengers during Q3.

"In response to these caps and in order to build additional resilience, easyJet is proactively consolidating a number of flights across affected airports. This provides customers with advance notice and the potential to rebook onto alternative flights.

"Given easyJet’s high-frequency network, we expect to be able to rebook the majority of customers on alternative flights, with many being on the same day as originally booked for.

Chief executive Lundgren went further to reassure customers. “Coupled with airport caps, we are taking pre-emptive actions to increase resilience over the balance of summer, including a range of further flight consolidations in the affected airports, giving advance notice to customers, and we expect the vast majority to be rebooked on alternative flights within 24 hours," he said.

“We believe this is the right action for us to take so we can deliver for all of our customers over the peak summer period in this challenging environment.”

EasyJet warned there would be a "cost impact" from the disruption for additional wet-leased aircraft, crew costs and airport charges, but stressed this would likely be an isolated summer 2022 issue.

"We believe that these capacity/cost impacts are a one-off this summer, as we would expect all parties to build greater resilience in time for 2023 peak periods," said the airline.

Booking momentum for summer 2022 "has continued with demand", said easyJet, with Q3 currently 86% sold and Q4 48% sold. Q3 ticket yield is up by around 2% and Q4 up by around 14%.

"This Q4 booking position is broadly in line with where we were at the same point in full-year 2019," said easyJet. "We will continue to fine-tune our schedule in the light of industry conditions as we move through the summer season in order to deliver for our customers."

‘We are sorry’

EasyJet has also secured an additional three-aircraft-worth of slots at Lisbon airport, which will become available this winter.

“Delivering a safe and reliable operation for our customers in this challenging environment is easyJet’s highest priority, and we are sorry that for some customers we have not been able to deliver the service they have come to expect from us," added Lundgren.

“While in recent weeks the action we have taken to build in further resilience has seen us continue to operate up to 1,700 flights and carry up to a quarter of a million customers a day, the ongoing challenging operating environment has unfortunately continued to have an impact which has resulted in cancellations."