Queue chaos at Airports
Discussion
https://news.sky.com/story/easyjet-and-tui-flights...
Easyjet and TUI flights cancelled and long queues at some UK airports as passengers face half-term disruption
Again.
So Cardiff Manchester Gatwick Bristol Birmingham etc utter chaos.
Not sure about anyone else but 3 to 40hour queues isn’t viable with children. Certainly not with ours meltdown for sure.
Easyjet and TUI flights cancelled and long queues at some UK airports as passengers face half-term disruption
Again.
So Cardiff Manchester Gatwick Bristol Birmingham etc utter chaos.
Not sure about anyone else but 3 to 40hour queues isn’t viable with children. Certainly not with ours meltdown for sure.
Welshbeef said:
Not sure about anyone else but 3 to 40hour queues isn’t viable with children. Certainly not with ours meltdown for sure.
Never seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
Snow and Rocks said:
Welshbeef said:
Not sure about anyone else but 3 to 40hour queues isn’t viable with children. Certainly not with ours meltdown for sure.
Never seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
Snow and Rocks said:
I was recently in a 3+ hour queue at Manchester and the only meltdown i witnessed was from a woman in her 60s who took umbrage at one of the security staff. The children in the queue seemed happy enough from what i remember.
Never seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
I flew from Manchester a few years ago and it was dreadful. Massive queues at security and was a total sNever seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
t show. I would rather pay £100 more for a flight from somewhere else.Snow and Rocks said:
Never seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
From the way it reads, most of their staff are new, as most buggered off during covid and got other jobs - so for many of the staff, they probably haven't ever done it before!Deliberately flying from Prestwick this summer rather than Glasgow or Edinburgh, as it's so quiet an airport now it can never be that bad.
nebpor said:
Snow and Rocks said:
Never seen such a disorganised mess of a system, you would almost have thought they'd never done it before - lots of shouting and stress from the staff.
From the way it reads, most of their staff are new, as most buggered off during covid and got other jobs - so for many of the staff, they probably haven't ever done it before!Deliberately flying from Prestwick this summer rather than Glasgow or Edinburgh, as it's so quiet an airport now it can never be that bad.
All the airports laid off huge numbers of staff during covid. They are now massively struggling to re-hire fast enough to keep pace with passenger numbers.
So they don’t have enough staff, and the ones they do have are largely inexperienced. The result is exactly as you’d expect.
loskie said:
Prestwick: very limited choice of destinations
It serves the one we needed, so rather than Jet2 from Glasgow early AM it’s RyanAir lunchtime from PIK - with kids, I can’t be bothered with the morning rush TBH when there is as much uncertainty as nowTo put that in context, I was previously top tier one world from the amount of flying I used to do pre-pandemic … airports used to be well-oiled machines and at least somewhat predictable, but not just now - hopefully in a year or two they will again!
Edited by nebpor on Saturday 28th May 18:01
nebpor said:
loskie said:
Prestwick: very limited choice of destinations
It serves the one we needed, so rather than Jet2 from Glasgow early AM it’s RyanAir lunchtime from PIK - with kids, I can’t be bothered with the morning rush TBH when there is as much uncertainty as nowTo put that in context, I was previously top tier one world from the amount of flying I used to do pre-pandemic … airports used to be well-oiled machines and at least somewhat predictable, but not just now - hopefully in a year or two they will again!
Edited by nebpor on Saturday 28th May 18:01
Airports are a 24/7 operation, however when the pandemic hit and many airports laid off huge swathes of staff, said staff found other jobs that didn’t necessarily involve working in an airport at 0300 on a Saturday morning for example.
As such, many of those with experience of check-in, security, gate staff, baggage handlers, airbridge operators, flight dispatchers etc etc., haven’t returned and various airports have been desperately trying to recruit and train up brand new staff. Throw in delays in those new staff being able to obtain their airport ID passes due to delays in the ID offices due to under-staffing, new staff can’t work or begin training until they have an airside pass. This means the current resources are stretched and ultimately you get to breaking point whereby you simply don’t have enough staff to have enough security lanes open, for example, to process the passenger numbers that are being fed through the airports by the airlines.
These delays from the airport side then have a knock-on affect on the airlines themselves, as flights are delayed by the fact that passengers who have checked in are stuck in security, or the handling agent responsible for assisting disabled passengers is under-resourced and therefore delayed, or the handling agent has a lack of baggage staff to either screen baggage, transport it to the aircraft or load it in the hold.
These delays have a direct impact on the duty hours of the crew, which is very tightly regulated by the CAA and for good reason. A crew member delayed on one particular day will possibly affect their required minimum rest requirements and subsequent duty the following day; as a result, the airline crewing department have to remove that crew member from the flight and replace them with somebody who has the required rest. However that then disrupts that particular crew members’ roster and has a knock-on affect for a following duty tomorrow.
This causes a constant ripple-effect of changes for crew. With airlines generally on the short side in terms of crew numbers, again due to Covid, due to recruitment and subsequent training taking longer due to crew waiting on their airside ID passes, it means the pool of available crew on standby to be able to absorb these ripples is not resilient as it was prior to the pandemic.
I’ve read in the news about EasyJet and TUI cancelling flights and blaming it on ATC restrictions or runway closures; always some reason that isn’t their fault. Personally, I don’t buy it; potentially those factors are causing a snowball-effect of disruption that builds and builds, exacerbated due to insufficient crew numbers, eventually something has to give and they have to cancel flights because they simply don’t have crew available with the legally required hours to operate the duty.
Is this the fault of the airlines? Should they have more staff, more crew? Well, the rebound in air travel has occurred far quicker than some anticipated, but bringing new crew and staff online has been hampered by delays in the third-party security vetting organisations enabling them to get their ID passes, uniforms and so on. The staff and crew who are online are absolutely working their arses off, dealing with endless roster changes and airport-related disruption on a daily basis, trying to absorb as many of those aforementioned ripples as possible and ultimately, dealing face-to-face with passengers who are experiencing these delays.
One thing I will say to any prospective passengers at the moment is this; be kind to the crew. The airline industry has had it extremely rough throughout the pandemic, we’re just getting back on our feet but we’ve gone from 0 to 110% in the blink of an eye. The staff and crew who are at work are working flat out, they’re making personal sacrifices to keep the show on the road, but we’re being hampered at every turn by issues and delays coming at us from virtually all angles. Things you’d have thought simple; onboard catering for example, well the catering firms are short of staff and hey presto, not all flights are fully catered. Most are, but some aren’t. It’s a massive PITA, it reflects badly on us as airlines but it’s outside of our control. Giving the cabin crew grief about it won’t magically make all options on the menus appear, nor make the crew’s day any easier.
So when will things get better? Well, staff shortages and delays to services seem to be affecting every industry at the moment. Things will settle out, but it may take a couple of months to do so. Personally I’ve seen a trend of improvement at some airports, queues have been becoming less frequent and airport operations are beginning to become slicker as staff levels increase and slack is taken up. However, it’s a fine line and it only takes a couple of issues to trigger the perfect storm.
From an airline perspective, the entire summer will be challenging as we constantly have to deal with new problems, but everyday more and more crew are coming online and again, the workload is shared more evenly across crews. Much of our disruption feeds in from the airports themselves, generally airlines can sort themselves out but the airports throwing spanners into the works does make it a challenge.
As such, many of those with experience of check-in, security, gate staff, baggage handlers, airbridge operators, flight dispatchers etc etc., haven’t returned and various airports have been desperately trying to recruit and train up brand new staff. Throw in delays in those new staff being able to obtain their airport ID passes due to delays in the ID offices due to under-staffing, new staff can’t work or begin training until they have an airside pass. This means the current resources are stretched and ultimately you get to breaking point whereby you simply don’t have enough staff to have enough security lanes open, for example, to process the passenger numbers that are being fed through the airports by the airlines.
These delays from the airport side then have a knock-on affect on the airlines themselves, as flights are delayed by the fact that passengers who have checked in are stuck in security, or the handling agent responsible for assisting disabled passengers is under-resourced and therefore delayed, or the handling agent has a lack of baggage staff to either screen baggage, transport it to the aircraft or load it in the hold.
These delays have a direct impact on the duty hours of the crew, which is very tightly regulated by the CAA and for good reason. A crew member delayed on one particular day will possibly affect their required minimum rest requirements and subsequent duty the following day; as a result, the airline crewing department have to remove that crew member from the flight and replace them with somebody who has the required rest. However that then disrupts that particular crew members’ roster and has a knock-on affect for a following duty tomorrow.
This causes a constant ripple-effect of changes for crew. With airlines generally on the short side in terms of crew numbers, again due to Covid, due to recruitment and subsequent training taking longer due to crew waiting on their airside ID passes, it means the pool of available crew on standby to be able to absorb these ripples is not resilient as it was prior to the pandemic.
I’ve read in the news about EasyJet and TUI cancelling flights and blaming it on ATC restrictions or runway closures; always some reason that isn’t their fault. Personally, I don’t buy it; potentially those factors are causing a snowball-effect of disruption that builds and builds, exacerbated due to insufficient crew numbers, eventually something has to give and they have to cancel flights because they simply don’t have crew available with the legally required hours to operate the duty.
Is this the fault of the airlines? Should they have more staff, more crew? Well, the rebound in air travel has occurred far quicker than some anticipated, but bringing new crew and staff online has been hampered by delays in the third-party security vetting organisations enabling them to get their ID passes, uniforms and so on. The staff and crew who are online are absolutely working their arses off, dealing with endless roster changes and airport-related disruption on a daily basis, trying to absorb as many of those aforementioned ripples as possible and ultimately, dealing face-to-face with passengers who are experiencing these delays.
One thing I will say to any prospective passengers at the moment is this; be kind to the crew. The airline industry has had it extremely rough throughout the pandemic, we’re just getting back on our feet but we’ve gone from 0 to 110% in the blink of an eye. The staff and crew who are at work are working flat out, they’re making personal sacrifices to keep the show on the road, but we’re being hampered at every turn by issues and delays coming at us from virtually all angles. Things you’d have thought simple; onboard catering for example, well the catering firms are short of staff and hey presto, not all flights are fully catered. Most are, but some aren’t. It’s a massive PITA, it reflects badly on us as airlines but it’s outside of our control. Giving the cabin crew grief about it won’t magically make all options on the menus appear, nor make the crew’s day any easier.
So when will things get better? Well, staff shortages and delays to services seem to be affecting every industry at the moment. Things will settle out, but it may take a couple of months to do so. Personally I’ve seen a trend of improvement at some airports, queues have been becoming less frequent and airport operations are beginning to become slicker as staff levels increase and slack is taken up. However, it’s a fine line and it only takes a couple of issues to trigger the perfect storm.
From an airline perspective, the entire summer will be challenging as we constantly have to deal with new problems, but everyday more and more crew are coming online and again, the workload is shared more evenly across crews. Much of our disruption feeds in from the airports themselves, generally airlines can sort themselves out but the airports throwing spanners into the works does make it a challenge.
Alorotom said:
I’m out of Birmingham in the morning - staying overnight at the airport and had a wander through the checkin area - no queues beyond what you would see normally 20-30 families deep at max but that was only at TUI - all other areas, free flowing and no queues for checkin.
This. You see all of these fear mongering stories every week about huge queues and chaos, when we flew from Birmingham 3 weeks ago it took around 45 minutes to check in bags and pass security, nothing different from any other time I've used Birmingham airport. Alorotom said:
I’m out of Birmingham in the morning - staying overnight at the airport and had a wander through the checkin area - no queues beyond what you would see normally 20-30 families deep at max but that was only at TUI - all other areas, free flowing and no queues for checkin.
What looks like the queue, is only 20% of the queue, it snakes around into and out of hidden rooms.Last Wednesday I flew 6:40 Birmingham to Verona. The queue was less than 3/4 of an hour. I joined the queue at 4:30 (it took me 50 mins from.arriving at Short Run Airport Parking to be told where to park, wait for the shuttle bus to be full and arrive at the drop off point.
There were staff coming down the queue, about 5am calling for people in a flight that was due to leave at 5:30.
The queuing at Verona to come back.via Amsterdam on Friday was erm 4 people.
Got a little delayed in security, having to explain the contents of my hand luggage. Dozens of turned metal parts, i was given by our supplier, to alow our factory to produce over the weekend. It was only when i pulled up the company website and showed them the product that they decided they weren't something bad.
And then a 40 minute wait for the shuttle bus to take me back to "short run"
Thanks Muddle for the informative post - clearly you are in the aviation industry.
The crew hours is something that I was only saying to my wife this morning - a plane waiting on the tarmac for whatever reason will be eating into hours.
What is the specific rest period for cabin crew and pilots? Different I would guess.
The crew hours is something that I was only saying to my wife this morning - a plane waiting on the tarmac for whatever reason will be eating into hours.
What is the specific rest period for cabin crew and pilots? Different I would guess.
MOMACC said:
90 minutes to get through East Midlands yesterday at 05.00.
Issue I saw was a st load of flights out at 06.00 -08.00 then nothing until midday, so a lot of passengers.
Frankie and Bennies had no coffee so a 6.30am cider was the only viable option. It's a hard life.
We go from there next month at a similar time, hopefully fast track will help, unless they cancel it or everyone does it.Issue I saw was a s
t load of flights out at 06.00 -08.00 then nothing until midday, so a lot of passengers.Frankie and Bennies had no coffee so a 6.30am cider was the only viable option. It's a hard life.
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