London, Europe Brief News – Europe’s airports are facing a ‘big challenge’ over summer, spelling chaos for millions of passengers.
Snaking queues and regular cancellations have become depressingly common scenes for travellers, with hundreds missing flights at Dublin airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport this week.
The future does not look promising. Air Council International – Europe’s trade body for airports – have predicted that delays are inevitable at two-thirds of European airports this summer.
Today, aviation professionals echoed this warning.
“Traffic has come back heavily – 86 per cent of 2019 capacity is in the network – and a lot of traffic has moved west out of Ukraine,” cautioned Jacopo Passinotti, network management director at air traffic management body Eurocontrol.
Airports in Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands have tried offering perks including pay rises and bonuses for workers who refer a friend.
Leading operators have already flagged thousands of openings across Europe.
Yet the hiring blitz can’t come fast enough to erase the risk of cancelled flights and long waits for travellers even beyond the summer peak, analysts and industry officials say.
The summer when air travel was supposed to return to normal after a two-year pandemic vacuum is in danger of becoming the summer when the high-volume, low-cost air travel model broke down – at least in Europe’s sprawling integrated market.
Labour shortages and strikes have already caused disruption in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Frankfurt this spring.
