Prepare For a ‘Year’ of Airport Hell

Due to lay-offs during the pandemic and staff self-isolating, airlines are struggling to cope with demand, leading to airport disruption and thousands of flights being cancelled. MailOnline has more.

Experts said that airlines “are simply unable to cope with that demand due to a lack of resources” and warned that the “nightmare” disruption – of the sort seen over Easter, where hundreds of flights were cancelled by airlines including British Airways and easyJet – could last all year.

BA has axed hundreds of flights up on some routes to the U.S. and the Far East until September, affecting thousands of travellers after it had already cancelled more than 1,000 flights in little more than three weeks.

Routes affected have included from London to Berlin, Dublin, Geneva, Paris, Stockholm, Athens and Prague. The flagship carrier axed another 200-plus flights over yesterday and on Wednesday, affecting an estimated 20,000 passengers.

There are fears that other carriers could also be hit with issues after easyJet cancelled hundreds of flights over Easter.

Kully Sandhu, managing director of Aviation Recruitment Network, told the Express: “In my opinion, it could be up to 12 months before we see staffing at airports back to pre-pandemic levels. Recruitment for people at airports takes longer than roles elsewhere because of necessary, additional security and background checks.

“Routine recruitment campaigns ground to halt during the pandemic and have been slow to start again as international travel has had a number of restrictions on it until recently. That means the recruitment pipeline was cut off and needs to be re-established.

“Aviation has lost its appeal, not only for returners but also for people who have never worked in an airport environment before.”

George Morgan-Grenville, chief executive of Red Savannah Luxury Travel, added: “It is an unfortunate perfect storm and airlines and airports are trying to ramp up again after the pandemic.”

Worth reading in full.