European flights canceled due to relaxing masking

Damn. We have any EasyJet flight next month, with no good alternative. Here's hoping the situation gets better - for everyone, EJ employees as well as travelers.

The airlines had been pushing hard for the relaxation of Covid travel restrictions and this is what they have got. With 1 in 13 people in England estimated to have Covid, there is no way I would get on a flight today as people don’t have to wear masks.

The situation is very fluid and could change soon. No need to panic if your flights are weeks away. It’s a relatively small proportion of their flights that are cancelled.

I think the headline is a bit misleading. The flight chaos is due to a number of reasons. Staff illness due to Covid is part of the reason but that's not solely down to relaxing mask usage, Covid rates in the UK are high since the relaxation of all Covid restrictions so dropping mask restrictions isn't the sole reason. It's not just staff related either, a BA spokesperson stated: *British Airways has cancelled about 100 flights, although only about five were last-minute cancellations directly related to staff absence.* My upcoming flights to Mallorca and Barbados currently still require me to wear a mask throughout the duration of the flight because the mask rules at the flight destination require it. The majority of flights operated by BA still require mask wearing.

There's also the issue with staff shortages due to redundancies during the pandemic when air travel was severely restricted. The airlines haven't been able to catch up nor have the airports. Security vetting is taking considerably longer due to many government employees still working from home.

Then there is the IT glitch that heavily impacted BA flights and baggage handling and the knock on effect that this has had.

And finally there is the problem with the e-gates (again!) meaning that immigration queues are longer, further compounded by the reduction in border staff due to illness and insufficient staff numbers.

Our flight with Easyjet from Madeira to Lisbon was cancelled monday due to “weather” meanwhile all other flights were leaving and only the Easyjet flights were cancelled. It was a nightware to rebook on another airline since all flights were full. No help from easyjet at all. I was able to book us on a tap portugal flight but it was costly and we had to spend an extra night in Funchal and were not able to cancel our hotel in Lisbon. Hopefully we will get the 250€ from easyjet or our travel insurance will cover the extra cost.

There have been a number of cancellations and diversions this week in Madeira and the Canary Islands due to strong wind gusts. Many Lanzarote flights have been diverted to Fuerteventura. If planes get out of place on a previous rotation on a different route, then that may force airlines to cancel other flights. It isn’t just Covid causing issues.

The advice given over the past two years still stands as far as I am concerned - limit your travel to one country, negating the need to take other flights within Europe.

The challenge with any discussion about masks and differences across jurisdictions with or without mask mandates is that at this point unless everyone is using the same type of well fitted N95 mask, comparisons have little usefulness. A cloth mask or basic blue one is not as protective as a well fitted N95.

Good to know. Hopefully the situation will get sorted out in the next few weeks, but we'll definitely try to keep it in mind and have alternatives ready.

I flew home from Rome on Wed night on a non-Italian airline. It was mandatory to wear N95 mask (FFP2 in Europe) to board the plane (Italian regs). About an hour into the flight, the crew offered regular surgical masks to anyone who wanted one. However, I believe that mask requirements are changing soon in Italy, so who knows what's next.