European tourists continue to fall victim to “post-war” consequences in the aviation industry. Mass cancellations of flights, chaos at the airport, and huge long queues of 12 hours or more are now, according to Britain, already recorded in the Netherlands, and even reached Germany. The reason is the same: a massive shortage of staff at airports and airlines after the dismissal of employees during the pandemic. “The airports themselves admit that they failed to restart the season and did not hire enough staff,” – said the German media.
“In all places, service providers involved in passenger service are short of about 20% of ground staff compared to the pre-pandemic period. This can lead to problems during rush hours, especially during check-in, when loading suitcases, and aviation security control, ”said Ralph Basel, Managing Director of the ADV Airports Association.
According to him, in Frankfurt alone, about 4,000 jobs were cut, and staff “found the best jobs elsewhere.” “The Rhine-Main labor market is virtually empty. It is difficult to hire more than 100 new people a month, ”said Fraport CEO Stefan Schulte. The problem is mostly in the security requirements for airport employees – it can take up to six weeks to check them. At the same time, in general, airports in Germany alone need 5.5 thousand employees.
To prevent even more chaos, despite the start of the holiday season, Frankfurt has announced that it will reduce the flight schedule, ie cancel some connections. However, the airlines are not very happy about this and demand compensation. In the summer, Lufthansa plans to fly again at 95% of pre-crisis levels, and its subsidiary Eurowings, which operates direct flights, even plans to expand until 2019.
As a result, going on vacation becomes a test of nerves for tourists. “Due to the increase in the share of tourism in the volume of traffic, huge crowds gather in German terminals, especially on weekends. Long queues have become a daily reality in Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Frankfurt. The Verdi union expects problems to continue over the summer, “said Verdi expert Ozai Tarim.
Amsterdam is also taking steps to unload the airport by reducing connections. There, airlines are also not happy about it and demand compensation. The same chaos, we recall, in the UK – read the details at the link.
In total, according to Eurocontrol, last week, from 23 to 29 May, there were again more than 28,100 flights a day in the skies of Europe, which corresponds to almost 86% of the pre-crisis level.