Despite school term time having resumed across nearly all of the country, the busiest day of the year for airline departures from the UK is scheduled to be Friday 6 September, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

However, passengers departing from airports across the country on Friday have been facing disruption due to heavy rain in southern England and Wales, with dozens of morning flights cancelled or delayed.

More than half a million seats across 3,261 flights were scheduled to depart UK airports on Friday, the biggest number since October 2019, before the pandemic. The figure is 91 per cent of the levels seen in 2019.

The busiest airport was scheduled to be Heathrow, where many inbound and outbound flights have been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions and air traffic control restrictions on Friday.

Before midday, cancelled services included British Airways flights to Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, Manchester, Brussels, Oslo, Bucharest, Split, Milan, Prague, Marseille, Dusseldorf and Nice.

Inbound BA flights from Basel, Manchester, Toulouse, Berlin, Paris, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Munich, Budapest, Stockholm, Brussels, Bareclona, Montreal, and Washington, DC to Heathrow were also cancelled before lunchtime, representing almost 6,000 seats in total.

However, easyJet is predicted by Cirium to be operating the busiest schedule this weekend, followed by British Airways and Ryanair. At Gatwick, many services were subject to delays and cancellations.

A London Gatwick spokesperson said: “Due to the bad weather, temporary air traffic control restrictions are in place across Europe and the UK today, which means some flights may be delayed. London Gatwick apologises to passengers for any inconvenience. Passengers should contact their airline for further information.”

Your rights when flights are disrupted

Passengers whose flights have been cancelled at short notice are entitled to a full refund within seven days, or to be re-routed on the earliest available flight – this could be on a different airline. If the replacement flight departs the following day, their airline should arrange overnight accommodation and transport to and from it. If assistance is not forthcoming, passengers can choose to organise this themselves then claim back the cost, which must be reasonable, from the airline.

Passengers whose flights are disrupted by adverse weather are not usually entitled to compensation, since it is beyond the control of airlines.