Hundreds of holidaymakers were in uproar at British airports over the weekend after they were told their trips were cancelled after an eight-hour wait. Police had to be called to settle disturbances at Manchester Airport, and passengers at Bristol were devastated as their holiday to Egypt was cancelled as they checked in.
People also reported 'shambolic' scenes of 'carnage' at Bristol airport, while easyJet has cancelled more than 200 flights to or from Gatwick between May 28 and June 6. Other airlines have cancelled dozens of flights and there have been delays reported at Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Belfast and Birmingham airports.
There have also been pictures of long queues at Dublin Airport at 3.30am on Monday morning. Here are some of the main reasons behind the queues, delays and cancellations.
Shortage of staff after pandemic
TUI and easyJet have both apologised and blamed a number of issues including air traffic restrictions and runway works, but one of the main issues seems to be a shortage of staff due to the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit.
People left the industry during the pandemic for other sectors with better pay, more satisfying work and better conditions. There has also been a huge increase in passengers as travel restrictions ease and families jet off for their first holidays in more than two years.
More than 10,000 flights are expected to depart between Thursday and Sunday, according to aviation data firm Cirium. That is a three-fold increase on the same period last year, when the UK's coronavirus travel restrictions remained in place.
Andy Pendergast, GMB’s national secretary for commercial services which includes responsibility for aviation, says the queues passengers are seeing at some of the UK's biggest airports are a "direct result of the failure of the industry to offer wages and terms and conditions which will attract people to the industry".
He added: "The cuts to pay and terms and conditions and the multiple rounds of lay offs which many companies undertook during the pandemic have shaken faith in the industry and many workers who lost their jobs have since found better paid roles which appear more secure.
"As such, unless these issues are firmly grappled by the employers, this issue is not going to go away. The problems have been further compounded by the slow speed of security checks which are causing serious issues for recruitment with new starters often having to wait months before they get the necessary clearance to begin work, something which has been exacerbated by the government cuts which are having a real impact on the front line.
"As a Union, we are calling on the Government to meet with employers and unions to really grapple with the problem before the holiday season starts in earnest. Unless there is serious investment in the sector, there is a great fear that the airports are simply not going to be able to cope with the high numbers over the summer which would be a disaster for holiday makers."
Issues facing tour operators
Holidaymakers who have booked packages with tour operators are in a trickier position. Over the weekend hundreds of TUI passengers at Manchester Airport received texts from the travel agent telling them that their trips had been cancelled after an eight-hour airport wait.
Passengers at Bristol Airport on Sunday were also emailed while they were in the queue for check in that their holiday to Egypt had been cancelled. Holidaymakers at Cardiff Airport faced a 40-hour delay last week after issues with their flight to Zante, and there were delays of around 24 hours with flights to Ibiza and Turkey. Read more about this here.
Rex Nikkels, airport procurement specialist for TUI, told Euro News Travel that because hotels, transfers and other parts of the trip are booked together, it makes it hard to reschedule. It means that tour operators like them - and the people that book through them - have been some of the hardest hit by chaos at airports.
He said: “We also had to get rid of people. We are also short of staff for now, but we can manage.” He added it means tour companies have taken a hit to their reputation because people are quick to blame them when all of the moving parts of a package holiday can’t be changed. “This summer, we will face the same problems,” he said.
Don't arrive too early
Passengers arriving too early are also causing issues for airports, as arriving too early can cause as many problems as arriving too late. Experts say that people shouldn’t show up more than three hours before their flight as those turning up five hours or more before departure are simply adding to the queues.
A spokesman for Bristol Airport says that some passengers have been turning up five hours before their flight. You can follow live updates from the airport here.
He said: "The Bristol Airport team and business partners are working hard to ensure all customers have a smooth and easy journey through the terminal. For early morning flight departures we are seeing customers arriving five hours prior to flight departure, adding to the congestion in the terminal. This is something we have not experienced before. When customers are queuing before check-in and security opens it provides a negative customer experience for everyone, and one we want to avoid.
"We advise all customers to arrive in the terminal when their check-in opens, this helps us to manage resources and gets customers on their way quickly and efficiently as possible. Each day over 80% of customers experience less than a 20-minute security queue time, it is only during peak flight operations we extend beyond this.
“We have already made a positive start recruiting new colleagues across the business and it is great to see so many new colleagues joining the team ahead of the busy summer.” To get the latest news from across Wales, subscribe to our newsletters here.
