After high level of COVID-19 infection among staff, EasyJet and British Airways have been forced to cancel flights, in the reflection of rising cases in UK, after the removal of almost all pandemic restrictions.

Since Friday EasyJet has cancelled 222, coronavirus absences. According to them it had made efforts to offset staff shortages by registering additional standby crew on the weekend but it was forced to make “additional cancellations for Sunday and Monday”.

Total of 62 flights scheduled for Monday have been set, most of them were announced at short notice on Saturday.

Spokesperson of EasyJet told “As a result of the current high rates of COVID infections across Europe, like all businesses EasyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness. We have made 62 pre-emptive cancellations for flights to and from the UK for Monday which represents a small proportion of Monday’s total flying program which was planned to be more than 1,645 flights. We cancelled the majority of these on Saturday.”

Whereas British Airways has cancelled around 100 flights, although about five were last-minute cancellations directly as staff was not present, a spokesperson said. “The rest of the cancellations had already been made for different reasons and the airline was aiming to keep cancellations to high-frequency routes such as Paris and Madrid.”

Average of 84,000 people tested positive for coronavirus daily in the week to 24 March, but separate data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) last week suggested that as many as one in every 13 people in UK were infected from, UK government has report.

The ONS said the rise in infections was led by the Omicron variant BA.2, while the removal of restrictions and reversion to pre-pandemic behaviors such as socializing in larger groups and wearing masks less have also been cited by some scientists.

Spokesperson for British Airways, which is owned by FTSE 100 conglomerate International Airlines Group, said “We’re not immune to it – like any other business,” On Sunday morning at Heathrow airport comes after passengers were stuck in long queues at  as Easter holidays got under way, some holidaymakers reported for being stuck in foreign with no explanation or alternative route home offered by the airline.

The airport called the congestion to COVID checks required by destination countries and “high passenger volumes”.

The Home Office confirmed that there had been a “technical issue” with the checkpoints which has since been resolved, said the problem had not caused queues to exceed the “standard length” at Heathrow.

Manchester airport has experienced similar problems in recent weeks as it has struggled to cope with delays because of increased traveler’s numbers amid staff shortages.