Airport chaos: strikes in most European countries; thousands of flights canceled; crowded airports, lost or delayed luggage!
What is happening in commercial aviation is no longer a negligible situation, which could be treated promptly. Today, most European airlines are facing a shortage of flight attendants. At the same time, major European hubs have ground staffing problems.
Chaos in airports
In addition to the labor crisis, the civil aviation industry is also facing a wave of dissatisfaction from pilots, flight attendants, security guards and auxiliary workers. Obviously, most of the grievances are related to money, salaries, but there are other claims. For example, the navigating staff wants to respect the sleeping hours, others want better working conditions, there are sectors where upgrading to modern standards has been required, etc. In other words, dissatisfaction has to do with money, but not everything comes down to money.
All this has led to the cancellation of thousands of flights, and tens of thousands of passengers have been killed. The latter could not travel to the desired destination. The reason for the trip doesn't matter anymore.
As expected, about 10% of the flights scheduled for July and August have already been canceled and it is not excluded that we will witness other cancellations. Airlines are forced to use planes that can carry more passengers to reduce the effect of cancellations on passengers.
But even so, the airports have announced that they will limit the number of passengers who can travel daily, a decision also made due to lack of staff. An airport manager said that it is better to take such measures in time and to affect a finite number of passengers, instead of having spontaneous cancellations and putting many more passengers in unpleasant situations.
Strikes in most European countries
For you, I have made a brief summary of the strikes announced and the measures taken by various airports in Europe:
Strikes in Europe
- RYANAIR, Volotea and easyJet employees announce a 24-hour strike, on June 25, in Italy!
- RYANAIR employees in Spain will go on strike June 24, 25, 26, 30, as well as between July 1 and 2, 2022
- The unions they represent Brussels Airlines pilots and flight attendants are threatening to strike on June 23, 24 and 25!
Measures taken by airports:
- London Gatwick Airport will reduce air traffic with over 800 flights per month due to lack of staff
- Amsterdam Schiphol Airport limits the number of passengers what they will travel every day, in the summer season 2022!
Flights canceled by airlines
- Air Canada canceled about 10% of scheduled flights in early June at Toronto Pearson
- SAS cancels 4000 flights, in the summer season 2022
- Lufthansa and Eurowings cancel more than 1000 flights scheduled for July 2022
- British Airways has canceled more than 8000 flights scheduled in the summer schedule 2022
- easyJet had to cancel 40 flights a day by the end of June
- Thousands of flights were canceled in the US, in April-June. Tens of thousands more were noticeably late in April-June.
Passengers affected by delayed flights (more than three hours) or canceled less than 14 days from the date of take-off may be eligible to receive commissions between 250 euros and 600 euros.
And do you know the paradox in this whole story? Commercial and passenger aviation accounted for 80% -85% of reported air traffic in 2019 for the same period. The estimates were incorrect. The desire of the people to travel has surpassed the most optimistic scenarios regarding the return of the passenger aviation industry.