Travel chaos in Europe, US a warning to Australian passengers

Even Schiphol, the Amsterdam airport that is a byword for smooth efficiency, will this summer cut by 13,500 the number of passengers it can process.

And now Heathrow, one of Europe’s busiest airports, looks set to step things up a gear, with about 700 check-in and ground staff voting to go on strike during the July travel peak.

The unions are also asking engineers and call centre staff at other airports – including Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester – whether they want to strike, too.

Industrial action could spread to other airports on the Continent. And staff at two of the biggest budget airlines, Ryanair and EasyJet, will also take industrial action at various points in the coming six weeks, unless their bosses can talk them down.

In the US, both American Airlines and United Airlines announced last week that they were going to end or reduce services to domestic cities, citing a lack of pilots and frequent delays.

American Airlines’ regional carriers have had to lift pilot wages by more than 50 per cent due to the shortage. United Airlines’ pilots union has just approved a tentative deal for a 14.5 per cent pay raise within 18 months.

On the East Coast, United reduced its schedule at Newark Liberty International Airport by 12 per cent. In the first half of this year about a third of flights were delayed at United’s New York hub.

Airport queues, pilots’ blues

In Europe, the number of flights being cancelled, which at this point is estimated at several thousand a week, is still a small proportion of the total that take off every day.

But the chaos is being widely felt: everyone who has ventured near an airport seems to have a story to tell.

In the past two weeks alone, The Australian Financial Review’s London correspondent has had one flight cancelled and two delayed, and endured a Heathrow Airport queue for security screening that snaked out of the terminal and into the car park.

On a flight to Germany from London, we sat on the tarmac at Heathrow for more than an hour, waiting to take off. Some passengers stormed off the plane – prompting another hour’s delay as we waited for a baggage handling crew to get the fugitives’ luggage out of the hold. “I offered to take the bags off myself,” the frustrated pilot told the remaining passengers.

A few days later on a flight from Berlin, a pilot, sounding jaded, passengers that it had been “one thing after another all day, mounting up”, as he explained an hour-long delay.

At the other end, when it transpired we would not have to circle over London for a further hour, he came on the loudspeaker with the word “Hallelujah!”

The Financial Review’s Washington correspondent had a flight back from San Diego cancelled “due to an issue with the crew”, and was shifted onto a two-legged journey that began with a 5am flight and involved a queue of 4000 to 5000 people at Denver Airport’s security check.

Kristy Carr, the co-founder and CEO of organic baby formula and foods maker Bubs Australia, said her internal domestic flight in the US had been cancelled – causing havoc in terms of meetings she needed to hold as she tries to organise distribution of her product in 33 American states.

The Biden administration and the British government have both been urging the aviation industry to keep the show on the road as the holidays loom. But there is no magic solution for a lack of staff, demands for higher wages, and rising fuel costs.

Air travellers will just have to fasten their seatbelts for a bumpy ride – if they can get into a seat at all.