Airlines have called on the UK to relax immigration rules after Brexit and to give special visas to EU aviation workers to help alleviate the disruption that is affecting the travel industry as demand of flights increases.
Airline executives told Transport Secretary Grant Shapps at a meeting on Wednesday that they could alleviate some of their staff shortages by moving the crew to the UK from other European bases, according to people with knowledge of the call.
But Shapps warned that the government was unlikely to relax immigration rules to help the industry, which has been rocked by delays and cancellations during one of the busiest weeks of the year.
Pressure on the industry will intensify this holiday season with nearly 2 million people hoping to fly after a week in which passengers suffer widespread disruptions and companies accused of selling more fights than they could operate.
More than 10,500 flights with around 1.9 million seats are expected to leave UK airports between Thursday and Sunday, according to data from analyst company Cirium, as the long Jubilee weekend coincides with the semesters of schools.
The rush continues to be a disastrous week for the industry, as travelers have complained about missed flights, day delays and queues coming out of terminal buildings.
EasyJet and Tui were forced to cancel hundreds of flights, some with little notice, as they struggled to find enough crew and planes to meet their schedules, while airports such as Manchester and Bristol apologized to customers for the delays. Air traffic control problems across Europe increased the chaos.
The interruption sometimes bordered on farce: passengers watched as a Tui pilot went to the runway to help load bags on his plane, while other pilots said a Vueling flight took off without passengers. after a mixture. up.
In all, there were 377 cancellations of flights from UK airports between 25 and 31 May, Cirium said, of which 151 affected passengers trying to travel from London Gatwick Airport, which be severely affected by the disruption of easyJet.
Airlines “seem to be trying to execute schedules that can’t materialize,” said Chris Tarry, an aviation consultant. The sector needed “an encounter with reality,” he added.
At the heart of the crisis is a shortage of staff that reveals a failure or inability to plan a period that was always expected to be busy, and comes just weeks after the industry received criticism for queues and delays during Easter.
As the chaos escalated during the week, a game of guilt began when Shapps said tensions in the sector “do not excuse poor planning and flight reservations that cannot be met.”
“Companies that have seen the most disruptions need to learn from those that managed services seamlessly,” he said.
Airlines, airports and ground operators laid off tens of thousands of staff in 2020 after the pandemic hit their businesses, and now they can’t re-hire fast enough to deal with it, mostly because many employees have to pass security checks before starting work.
British Airways lost about 10,000 employees during the pandemic and has since re-hired at least 2,000 crew, with “thousands” more waiting for security clearance, the airline said.
However, the airline bosses took advantage of the return of flight demand and planned long schedules that were impossible to meet, with easyJet promising to fly close to its 2019 schedules and the owner of BA, IAG, an 80 %, despite having fewer staff.
For unions, the chaos is proof that airline bosses are cutting back too much on the pursuit of cost savings, leaving companies without the flexibility to keep up with demand.
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Sharon Graham, head of Unit the Union, blamed the airlines for “dismissing and cutting the salaries of thousands of workers without thinking twice during the pandemic”.
Martin Chalk, head of the Balpa pilots’ union, said the industry “was reaping what it sowed” and that airlines that worked more closely with their staff during the crisis were now better placed to overcome disruption.
But airline and airport executives were frustrated and angry because the government blamed them for the disruption.
Industry agency AirlinesUK said the vast majority of flights were operating as scheduled and that the sector “had only had weeks to recover” after travel restrictions were lifted in March.
Airlines received less financial support than in many other countries, while strict rules requiring airlines to use the assigned take-off and landing strips leave them with limited flexibility to cancel flights in advance.
Balpa’s Chalk said the government had also ignored specific requests to extend the permit for aviation personnel with security clearances. “It’s very rich that they are now pointing the finger,” he said.
Jet2 chief Steve Heapy told Travel Weekly that ministers had a “poor” understanding of the industry.
The aviation industry is a fragile and complex network of companies that operates with the tip of the knife at the best of times and is prone to cascading interruptions whenever a problem occurs.
The problems during Easter were partly because the airports were understaffed, especially in security, and executives said these jobs had been taken over in large part. But issues have now changed, including check-in and ground operations.
Ministers have introduced temporary changes to help front-line staff more quickly, including allowing training while security checks are being conducted and tax employment history letters being used for reference checks.
But without a quick fix in sight and many airlines still with little chronic staff, airlines expect the disruption to continue well into the high summer season, according to an airline news document seen by the Financial Times.
Several airlines have responded by cutting back on schedules to better reflect their ability to operate flights and to try to avoid last-minute cancellations.
EasyJet said this week it would reduce 24 flights a day, while Tui canceled 43 flights a week from Manchester.
There are indications that this tactic might work. BA has managed to inject resilience into its operations after cutting 10 percent of its schedule last month after repeated outages.
“You can’t turn on an industry overnight,” said Paul Charles, a travel industry consultant. “It would always be impossible to wait for it to restart immediately,” he said.
A Birmingham passenger leaves Tui after a full day at the airport
For Richard Guttfield, what should have been a three-and-a-half-hour flight to Greece became a full-day ordeal on Sunday as he became one of tens of thousands of passengers trapped by the disruption affecting the travel industry.
Holidaymaker Tui held passengers in hopes of flying between Birmingham and Keffalonia waiting at the airport gate for about eight hours without any communication, Guttfield said, before finally sending them a message saying -those that the flight will not work until the next morning.
“We were all left guessing what was going on, there was no information from Tui, nothing, not a word,” the 55-year-old tech worker said. “People tried to contact Tui but got nothing”
Passengers were promised hotel rooms, but the airline never delivered, Guttfield said, but quickly offered £ 500 compensation according to UK rules.
To the customers of the flight from Kefalonia, which finally landed on Monday evening, the ground operators offered accommodation and compensation, Tui said.
In all, he estimates he spent 11 hours at the airport on Sunday afternoon, before giving up and booking an easyJet flight the next day.
“I didn’t trust Tui to get there,” he said.
Guttfield was not alone: other passengers from various airlines have complained about problems, such as a 30-hour wait for a flight to Turkey from Manchester, a canceled wedding in Cyprus and a £ 6,000 tickets for the lost Monaco Grand Prix.
As more people were caught in the disruption, consumer groups called for better protection for passengers.
“The government and regulators need to take their share of responsibility to create a situation where airlines feel empowered to mistreat passengers,” said Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel.
“Ministers should abandon plans to reduce passenger compensation when UK domestic flights are delayed or canceled and give the Civil Aviation Authority the powers it needs to hold airlines accountable.” .
Tui said he “incredibly” regretted the recent outage.
“We understand that last minute delays and cancellations are incredibly disappointing, and we would like to assure our customers that we are doing our best to get them to go on holiday as planned.”