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Irish airline Aer Lingus cancelled 12 of its flights on Wednesday due to a spike in Covid-19 cases among staff.

Return flights from Dublin to Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Lyon, Geneva, Munich and Amsterdam were cancelled.

In addition six flights, including a Dublin to Heathrow return service, have been cancelled on Thursday.

The airline has apologised and has said it is working to secure alternative travel options for the passengers affected.

"Our teams are working to secure alternative travel options for customers in each case and wish to apologise to those impacted for the inconvenience," an Aer Lingus spokesperson said.

"Just over 1% of Aer Lingus flights have been impacted by cancellations this month."

The company has said that if crew illness requires the cancellation of additional flights in the coming days, it will seek to re-accommodate passengers on the next available services "as efficiently as possible".

Aer Lingus also said it "anticipated the return of demand for travel" once Covid restrictions were removed and "built appropriate buffers into our plans in order to deal with a reasonable level of additional disruption".

"System pressures and ongoing issues at some airports and among third party suppliers have created considerable operational challenges which have been compounded by a significant spike in Covid cases in recent days."

The latest cancellations comes after three Aer Lingus flights were scrapped on Monday and 13 on Sunday due to air traffic control strikes in France, Italy and Spain, as well as Covid-19 cases among staff.