Holiday flights could take 18 months to return to normal – as airports prepare for entire summer of chaos
THE current travel chaos could last another 18 months, travel experts have warned.
Thousands of families have missed holidays and important events due to the current problems with cancelled flights and huge airport queues.
Heathrow Airport boss John Holland-Kaye has warned that airlines and airports needed to "plan much better" to make sure the current cancellations don't affect summer - but that the industry needs longer to recover.
He told the FT: “I think it will take 12 to 18 months for the aviation sector to fully recover capacity, so we will have to really carefully manage supply and demand ... to make sure we can give people a good and predictable experience."
The boss of Cornwall Airport Newquay also admitted that the industry will take more than a year to recover, and that they should have been better prepared.
Tim Jeans told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that it will take "18 months for our industry to recover," but added that the current chaos shouldn't be expected necessarily.
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The current travel disruptions have been caused by a number of issues, including staff shortages, and the long waits for security clearance delaying the hiring process.
Aviation experts had previously told how staff shortages, IT issues, air traffic problems and a surge of travellers post-Covid had caused a “perfect storm” of chaos for holidaymakers.
Airlines and airports have been accused of cutting too many jobs during the pandemic, as well as over-selling flights.
However, they have hit back at the government, claiming that they needed to step in to ease restrictions to be able to recruit new staff faster.
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And Britain’s biggest Union Unite added a further blow to travellers.
General secretary Sharon Graham told the : "Airlines assumed, wrongly, that people who had either been made redundant or got out of the industry would come back on a pittance pay.
"That’s not going to happen.
"There is now a chronic shortage of staff and I can’t see how it’s going to change by July. If they don’t get their act together, this chaos could go on until next year."
Airlines have been forced to reduce their schedules in response, to try and tackle the huge surge in travellers.
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TUI is reducing their flight schedule this month, affecting roughly six flights a day, while BA has scrapped 16,000 from March to October.
And Heathrow Airport has cut capacity at Terminal 5 by a third until next month.
