EasyJet and British Airways flights CANCELLED

HUNDREDS of passengers flying with easyJet and British Airways are facing long delays and cancellations.

QUEUE: Passengers wait to board an easyJet flight

A strike by French traffic control employees will ground British flights to France and over French airspace over the next three days.

Passengers travelling from Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton Airport to French airports are likely to experience lengthy delays or cancellations as a result of the strikes.

Officials at Gatwick said passengers were experiencing delays averaging 50 minutes – and advised all passengers to ring their airlines for updates.

BA: You won't be seeing this over the next few days

DELAY: But you're likely to see a lot of this

A spokesman for easyJet confirmed that 82 flights were cancelled on Sunday as a result of the strikes, including 32 scheduled to take off or land at British airports.

He added: "We have been pro-actively informing affected customers, so they have the opportunity to reorganise their journeys.

"Affected customers can change their flight free of charge or receive a refund.

"We advise customers to make any amendments to their booking on the 'manage my bookings' area of easyJet.com.

"As well as affecting flights to and from France, the strike action is causing delays to other flights which use French airspace.

"We recommend that all customers travelling on Sunday 20 and Monday 21 March 2016 check the status of their flight on our Flight Tracker page."

AND THIS: Passengers are advised to check flights before heading to the airport

ARRIVALS: The disruption is expected to last several days

He continued: "Although this is outside of our control we would like to apologise to all our customers for any inconvenience and would like to reassure them we are doing all possible to minimise any disruption as a result of the industrial action"

British Airways refused to disclose how many flights would be affected by the strikes – but said it was doing "all we can to minimise disruption to customers affected".

A spokeswoman added that larger aircraft were now being used and some flights were being re-routed.