EasyJet: 'Travel will return to normal next summer'

However, Johan Lundgren, chief executive of the airline, said current delays could continue into the winter. He described the disruption seen across the UK as a "blip".

He said the industry was being "repeatedly hit" by "unpredictable external factors" in the aviation "ecosystem", which made it "impossible" to guarantee there would be no more chaos going into the summer holidays.

"I think there will continue to be challenges in the remainder of the summer,” he told The Times. "We couldn’t possibly have foreseen that Amsterdam was going to introduce capacity caps.

"You can’t plan for the increased Covid infections that drove levels of absenteeism up at airports and air traffic control, and also in our company as well."