In Amsterdam, KLM suspended the sale of all tickets for four days from Schipol Airport entirely due to security staff shortages causing lines to reach the street. While ticket sales have resumed, the airport has asked airlines to cap passenger numbers artificially. It has also been granted the right to cut landing and takeoff rights to certain airlines until August 28, when passenger numbers are expected to decrease as the summer travel season ends.
Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport also saw over 100 flights canceled as workers went on strike last Thursday, leaving over a thousand people stranded. The strike pertains to the unionized ground staff, who say they are not paid enough to deal with the sudden uptick in demand. They are demanding a 300 euro raise for all emplayees, saying: “Despite the resumption of traffic and profits, our work is not paid at its fair value… everything increases, except our pay. The chaos suffered for several weeks by employees working in France and Europe is intolerable. We demand a 300 euro raise for all.”
In Madrid, there have also been many delays these past weeks due to staff shortages; Iberia said that around 15,000 passengers had missed their flight since March 1 due to the long lines at passport control. This has prompted a spree by the Spanish police; the airport is looking to hire 500 new workers, putting the total workers at 1,700.
However, the most severe and prolonged of these situations are in the UK, with airline and airport executives accusing the UK government of failing to respond to warnings about staff shortages earlier this year. Heathrow airport has also asked airlines to artificially cap the number of passengers onboard flights over the next two months to prevent potentially dangerous overcrowding in its terminals; they have also set a £1,000 sing-on bonus to attract workers. These issues can be mainly attributed to post-Brexit restrictions which don’t allow UK companies to recruit EU citizens; when the UK transport secretary was asked to waive these restrictions, he said the government was not to blame; he blamed the industry instead saying they laid off too many staff during COVID despite having received furlough financial support.
