Delays, Canceled Flights, Stranded Passengers, What’s going on in Europe?

London Heathrow Airport

The air travel situation around Europe these past couple of weeks has been grim, with thousands of flight cancellations, tens of thousands of passengers stranded, and hours-long lines that reach the streets. What’s going on?

Staff shortages at airlines and airports remain a severe problem in Europe; the UK has been particularly exposed to this during the late spring break travel season over the past weeks. Thousands of travelers found themselves stranded across Europe or have had trips canceled on short notice, with many of these disruptions taking place at London’s Gatwick Airport. Many airlines, including EasyJet, Tui, and British Airways, have recently seen numerous flight cancellations. This has raised concerns about what might happen during this summer’s peak travel season.

Overcdrowding at Schipol Airport, Amesterdam

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.

These cancellations have also affected the continent’s recovery from COVID; Eurocontrol said they expect traffic in its airspace to recover to about 85 percent of pre-COVID 2019 levels this year despite numerous disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, staff shortages in the continent, and inflation pressures on the global economy.

The agency published its revised short-term forecast for 2022-2024 on June 3 as flight delays and cancellations continue escalating at several major European airports caused by staff shortages. In the revised forecast, Eurocontrol says the most likely scenario would see around 9.5 million flights this year in Europe’s airspace. This represents a slight decline from the earlier forecast published in October 2021. The agency blamed the effect of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 during Q1 this year as the main reason for the near-term dip. However, they also noted flight cancellations due to staff shortages as contributing factors.

Eurocontrol has now said they expect to reach 2019 traffic volumes until 2024. In 2023, it expects the total number of flights to reach 10.6 million; this would come within 5 percent of the pre-pandemic traffic levels.

However, the organization also published an alternative “low scenario” outlook in which continuing disruptions from COVID, high fuel prices, staff shortages, and reduced disposable income due to rising inflation and living costs further challenge the recovery in traffic levels; under this scenario, it would take until 2027 to reach 2019 traffic volumes.