Rabu, 01 Juni 2022

Travel disruption continues as 150 flights cancelled - BBC

Travellers queue to check in for their flights at Gatwick Airport in London
EPA

Holidaymakers are continuing to face disruption at airports, with more than 150 flights cancelled on Wednesday.

Airlines including EasyJet and Tui were among those to make cancellations, although most customers will have been given advance notice.

There have also been long queues at terminals ahead of the Jubilee weekend.

The transport secretary said airlines and operators, which are struggling with staff shortages, had "seriously oversold flights and holidays".

EasyJet has cancelled at least 31 flights at Gatwick, to destinations including Bologna, Barcelona, Prague, Krakow and Edinburgh.

Last week the airline said around 24 flights a day would be cancelled from the airport between 28 May and 6 June.

Tui Airways is also continuing to cancel six daily flights at Manchester Airport, representing a quarter of its schedule and affecting around 34,000 travellers.

The company said all customers affected had been contacted, but some people told the BBC their flight had vanished from schedules and they had not heard from Tui.

British Airways has cancelled 124 short-haul flights at Heathrow, although the airline said these were pre-planned and passengers were told in advance.

Airlines UK, which represents the major British airlines, said the "vast majority" of flights would be operating as scheduled.

Up to two million people are preparing to fly over the next few days, with the Jubilee bank holiday coinciding with half-term.

Mr Shapps said the government had been clear that it was up to industry leaders to tackle travel disruption, which was also seen at Easter.

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'Absolute chaos'

Michael Turner
Michael Turner

Michael Turner, a nurse from Shoreham, is currently on his third attempt to go on holiday with his family to Tenerife.

Due to fly from Gatwick last Thursday, Mr Turner was told his EasyJet flight had been cancelled 20 minutes before departure.

He rebooked a Tui flight which was all that was available and said he experienced "absolute chaos" in the departure lounge at Manchester Airport.

After boarding the plane, Mr Turner said they spent three hours waiting only to be then escorted off to collect their baggage.

They were put on a coach without being told where they were going and then waited to be taken back to the airport for a flight on Tuesday evening.

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The transport secretary said he would meet with airports, airlines and ground handlers to "find out what's gone wrong and how they are planning to end the current run of cancellations and delays".

"Despite government warnings, operators seriously oversold flights and holidays relative to their capacity to deliver. This must not happen again and all efforts should be directed at there being no repeat of this over the summer - the first post-Covid summer season," he added.

'Missing in action'

But Labour accused the government of being "missing in action".

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh called on ministers to "take responsibility" for tackling the disruption by addressing the backlog in security checks for new staff and working with industry to address "chronic low-pay".

The aviation industry is suffering from staff shortages as it struggles to recruit replacements for the thousands of workers it laid off during the pandemic when international travel was halted.

Before Covid, airports and airlines across Britain employed around 140,000 people, but since then thousands of jobs have been cut, including around 30,000 for UK airlines alone.

Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency and a former Virgin Atlantic director, said the industry had been "overwhelmed" since demand for flights returned after the pandemic but argued the government itself was "responsible for this chaos".

"[The transport secretary] has got a bit of a nerve I'm afraid," he told the BBC. "It's because of government restrictions that changed so much during the pandemic, and then the shutdown of the industry with the Omicron variant last December, that has created this problem."

He added that without certainty over when travel restrictions would be eased, the industry was not able to recruit more staff.

Kelly Sandhu, from the Aviation Recruitment Network, said the process of hiring new workers took a long time so there was "not a quick fix" .

Airlines UK said the sector had "only a matter of weeks to recover and prepare for one of the busiest summers we've seen in many years" but, despite this, "the vast majority" of flights this week would be operating as scheduled.

The final Covid restrictions for people travelling to the UK were lifted on 18 March.

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2022-06-01 09:22:39Z
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