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A boom in summer travel alongside a severe manpower shortage at airports in Europe is causing a number of inconveniences for passengers, including cancelled flights, long queues leading to missing flights and delayed baggages. Most recently, as per a Bloomberg report, London’s Heathrow Airport, which is one of the worst impacted, asked airlines operating at two of its terminals to cancel 10 per cent of their flights.
When the Covid-19 pandemic emerged two years ago and the aviation industry got hit severely, airlines and airports handed pink slips to workers to reduce costs as flights remained grounded for a long time. However, with the pandemic slowly receding, people have started travelling and airlines have started mounting flights. But the airport staff wasn’t hired in line with the growing traffic. This, in addition to several airport and security worker unions at European airports going on a strike seeking better pay, has led to a severe shortage of labour causing disruptions in flight operations.
These issues have emerged at some of the top European airport hubs, including London’s Heathrow, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Brussels airport, Frankfurt airport, and several others. The most visible problem is that of delayed baggage. As a result of labour shortage, passenger luggage is not being loaded into aircraft on time, and several flights are departing without carrying their passengers’ luggage. In addition to this, airports are witnessing long queues that are causing passengers to miss their flights.
Yes, while London Heathrow has asked airlines to cancel some of their flights to reduce the load, experts anticipate the situation to get worse in the coming days. “Due to the industrial action and the lack of security agents, no flights will depart from Brussels Airport today, Monday June 20. This case of force majeure makes it impossible to guarantee the safety of passengers and staff. This decision is needed to avoid chaotic situations,” Brussels Airport said Monday.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport said it was limiting the number of passengers per day to around 70,000 – 13,500 fewer than what airlines have scheduled — on account of the workforce shortage.
Even as flights to Europe by Indian carriers have not been cancelled yet, airlines are facing issues with baggage. In a tweet on Sunday, Air India wrote: “Passengers who travelled from London Heathrow by AI130 (to Mumbai) & AI170 (to Amritsar) of 19.06.22 may not get their bags at destination airport in India due to Heathrow Airport Baggage System Failure. Our Heathrow team is working on sending the bags on priority. We request for your understanding”.
As of now, Air India operates flights to London from various points in India such as Delhi, Mumbai, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, etc., while Vistara connects Delhi with London and Frankfurt. Air India also flies to other European destinations such as Frankfurt and Paris.
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