Britons have been urged to be “patient” on Friday as waits of a “few hours” at the port of Dover threaten to scupper weekend travel plans.

Tweeting this afternoon, the port said: “This Easter weekend will be busy. Extra measures are in place and Passenger Champions are ready at #PortofDover to welcome and help you.

“During the busiest travel hours on Friday, there may be a few hours of waiting. Please, be patient. We’re working hard to get you on your way.”

The website and mobile app of Irish airline Aer Lingus have been restored after going down ahead of one of the busiest travel weekends at Dublin Airport.

Aer Lingus said it expects flights to operate as normal but had previously warned of a risk of delays.

The airline apologised for inconveniencing passengers.

“The Aer Lingus website, mobile app and self-service kiosks are now fully available for customers to check in and manage their bookings,” it said.

Dublin Airport expects 485,000 passengers to pass through its gates between Thursday and Monday.

Ryanair has shared its frustration over the fallout from French air traffic control strikes, urging the EU commission to take action to protect overflights.

It comes as another day of walkouts in France against President Macron’s plans for pension reform forced Air France, easyJet, Ryanair and Vueling of Spain have cancelled some flights to, from, within or over France on Friday.

Ryanair tweeted: “French air-traffic controllers are entitled to go on strike, but if there is going to be cancellations it is French flights that should take these cancellations, not overflights.”

Millions of Britons are facing travel chaos this weekend with flights grounded, trains cancelled and traffic already building up at Dover as the Easter weekend getaway begins.

The four days between Good Friday to Easter Monday are expected to be the busiest since 2019, with post-Brexit passport checks, rail works and strikes in France all set to cause delays for travellers.

On Thursday morning, holidaymakers booked on cross-Channel ferries from Dover were already facing queues of 90 minutes for passport checks by French officials due to a “high volume” of traffic.

Read travel correspondent Simon Calder’s latest report here:

Easter holidaymakers bound for Europe are already mired in stifling travel delays after French protesters launched another day of industrial action.

France is the latest popular European destination to be hit by walkouts, with strike action in the UK, Portugal and Spain threatening to inflame rampant delays and cancellations.

Travel chaos has broken out on both sides of the channel, as French protestors blocked traffic around a mile from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport early on Thursday morning, forcing travellers to walk.

British Airways grounded around 20 flights that would have used French airspace as nationwide air traffic control strikes erupted across France.

Meanwhile, long queues have already formed for ferries at the port of Dover, with operator DFDS tweeting that the wait for passport checks by French officials is “up to 90 minutes”.

Coach operators have claimed their vehicles were “treated unfairly” after thousands of passengers were stranded at the Port of Dover for up to 24 hours over the weekend.

Trade association the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) called for “crisis talks” with the Government, the Kent port and ferry companies to “resolve this mess once and for all”.

Many holidaymakers travelling by coach during the weekend – the start of the Easter holiday period for many schools – were delayed entering the port and being processed.

The queues had cleared by Monday morning but there are fears the congestion could return during other peak periods due to French border officials carrying out extra checks and stamping UK passports following Brexit.

As well as delays at the Port of Dover, a general strike in France in a row over pension reforms is causing further travel disruption.

Many flights to, from and over France have been grounded due to air traffic controllers joining the walkout.

British Airways axed at least 20 flights which would have used French airspace on Thursday.

Eurostar cancelled a train in both directions between London and Paris.

Meanwhile, drivers have been warned to expect long delays on popular routes over the coming days.

The RAC is predicting that up to 17 million leisure trips by car will take place between Good Friday and Easter Monday.

Major roads in south-west England and some in the Home Counties are likely to experience the worst congestion on Good Friday.

Queues are likely to be increased by engineering work on the railways, including the closure of London Euston station over the bank holiday weekend.

The more the likes of Suella Braverman try to gaslight us to believe otherwise, the more insult is added to economic injury, Sean O’Grady writes.

In a crowded field, there is no other figure in public life who lives in a bubble of their own making to the same extent as Suella Braverman. Quite apart from the abject folly and failures of her Rwanda policy, her statements around grooming gangs and her economically illiterate attitude to migration, we find she is also suffering from the Brexit Delusion. No surprise, there.

According to the home secretary, who never seems quite on top of her brief, the massive queues at Dover are nothing at all to do with Brexit:

“No, I don’t think that’s fair to say that this has been an adverse effect of Brexit. We’ve had many years now since leaving the European Union and there’s been, on the whole, very good operations and processes at the border.”

The boss of the Port of Dover has contradicted claims by senior Tory MPs that French frontier officials were responsible for border hold-ups at the start of the Easter school holidays.

Doug Bannister, chief executive of the UK’s main departure point for continental Europe, said the Police aux Frontieres had been “very, very good” at responding to the build-up of traffic last weekend.

Tens of thousands of travellers queued for 12 hours or more ahead of ferry journeys to France as a post-Covid surge of coach trips came up against tougher post-Brexit border checks.

After the backlog was cleared in the early hours of Monday morning, Tim Loughton – a former chair of the home affairs select committee – blamed short staffing among French border officials.

Out travel correspondent Simon Calder reports: