Queue chaos at Airports

[heebeegeetee]

loskie said:

is the lorry driver shortage sorted? Are you sure?

It absolutely hasn't.
What seems to have happened, judging by the queues at Dover, is that large numbers of foreign truckers seem to have been persuaded to come to the UK, and seem to be sitting in interminable queues without vowing to never, ever return.
One has to assume those trucks sitting in queues for hours/days are being paid for, or they simply wouldn't be there, surely?
I am still seeing shortages in shops, or certainly not seeing the reliability of supply as we were used to.

Back on topic though, I'm guessing the aviation industry can't just recruit workers from elsewhere in Europe, post Brexit.
I notice the B word isn't coming up at all. Europe must be in exactly the same position as the UK in situations like this, but FOM allows them to move workers around as required, and for all the many reasons we're familiar with, Europeans just can't or aren't interested in coming here?

[Welshbeef]

PositronicRay said:

Prices will have to increase to a realistic level. I was astounded the other day, picked up a visitor from BHX, and realised that he'd only paid Ryan Air £9.99 for the flight from Knock. It cost me more in parking and petrol to collect him.

Yes those who are used to this and this for holibobs will start to readjust and not go on holidays overseas as it’s MUCH more

[anonymous-user]

heebeegeetee said:

loskie said:

is the lorry driver shortage sorted? Are you sure?

It absolutely hasn't.
What seems to have happened, judging by the queues at Dover, is that large numbers of foreign truckers seem to have been persuaded to come to the UK, and seem to be sitting in interminable queues without vowing to never, ever return.
One has to assume those trucks sitting in queues for hours/days are being paid for, or they simply wouldn't be there, surely?
I am still seeing shortages in shops, or certainly not seeing the reliability of supply as we were used to.

Back on topic though, I'm guessing the aviation industry can't just recruit workers from elsewhere in Europe, post Brexit.
I notice the B word isn't coming up at all. Europe must be in exactly the same position as the UK in situations like this, but FOM allows them to move workers around as required, and for all the many reasons we're familiar with, Europeans just can't or aren't interested in coming here?

Brexit is definitely part of the issue affecting the lack of employees across the U.K. travel and tourism sector. Yes it’s easy to say raise salaries to attract more U.K. workers but that’s often not viable or still won’t result in enough people to do many of these jobs.

[kiethton]

We're off to Gatwick tomorrow (Wizz flight at 7:30) - we have special assistance to help us through as 2/6 have disabilities - how bad are things there?

[rustyuk]

We flew out of Birmingham on Saturday and it was total carnage.

Massive queues for check in, the staff shouting and generally being obnoxious. Saw a few people loose their cool aa the lounges were turning people away due to over booking.

Our flight was delayed for four hours due to a lack of flight crew. No information from Tui at all.

Once we had boarded the flight drew were great.
We feel lucky to have gotten away as lots of flights were cancelled.

[heebeegeetee]

As for a solution, and I'm talking as a total layman, are the days of cheap air travel well and truly over? Isn't this an issue of far more customers than the industry can cope with, so prices will just go up to a point that determines a customer level, and increased funding can hopefully recruit more staff etc. A shame for families on budgets etc of course.

How much of a problem are passport checks? I don't fly much, but back in mid 2019 I happened to fly in to Stockholm. The gate for EU travellers was empty and we just walked through, but the queue for non-EU travellers was absolutely horrendous, totally unacceptable and bordering on inhumane imo, by first world standards anyway.
Why would they choose to retain so many people in their airport? Those people weren't doing anything, weren't able to spend money, they were just suffering by having to stand in a queue for possibly hours.

Made me realise what we had to look forward to when we formally leave EU, and now here we are, with huge
reported disruption at air and sea ports. Why?

[and31]

I’m flying from Gatwick 9.30 am Thursday-I’m dreading it.

[Blackpuddin]

Nobody wants to have to deal with angry ranters who prefer yelling to thinking. That goes for airline staff as well as PH posters. It's poor management, greed and selfishness on the airlines' part that makes life miserable for staff and travellers alike.

[captain_cynic]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

The thing about MAN is that it's always been bad. Even in the before times.


The staff shortage is an international problem. I've heard the same thing from Australia, America and Europe even though the issues are based in the local labour markets, a lot of logistics companies downsized due to the pandemic.

Now they need to upsize and they can't just do that on a whim. Security checks and passes need to be issued. New staff need to be trained as well. Then you've got a bunch of inexperienced staff who need to be mentored because learning how to do a job quickly and properly only comes with experience.

Back in March I flew out of LHR. I rocked up with 2 hours and change, barely made it to my flight on time because check in was such a nightmare. The issue was that they essentially had one check in desk for the entire economy class (150 odd seats on a KLM 738) and my flight was delayed because they were still checking people in.

This was still mid pandemic (well mid-late pandemic) so they had to check everyone's paperwork was in order. That pressure has eased somewhat but they are still short of staff on the ground. This can only be fixed with time as I've explained above. Trying to pretend otherwise is like saying 9 women can make a baby in 1 month.

[Tyre Smoke]

Blackpuddin said:

Nobody wants to have to deal with angry ranters who prefer yelling to thinking. That goes for airline staff as well as PH posters. It's poor management, greed and selfishness on the airlines' part that makes life miserable for staff and travellers alike.

Nobody has been yelling on here. You've just been called out on your simplistic views. And I wasn't ranting. I was ridiculing your 'solutions'.

[98elise]

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

If they paid enough wages they wouldn't be having such trouble recruiting staff. They won't do that so travellers pay in money, time and stress. Not sure why they can't entice more new staff by offering a hiring bonus eg double salary for first three or six months.

Jesus wept. And where do you think the funding for this 'double pay' will come from?

From the extra revenue from the flights they can actually run instead of postpone? Give the training staff more money too while you're at it. Organisation that isn't trimmed to beyond the bone + motivated and properly rewarded staff = everybody happy. Or they could just carry on like they are and scare everyone away from overseas travel. That doesn't sound like much of a future. What's your solution?

What extra flights? There are no extra flights. They are postponing the slots they have. There are no more.

Your over simplification is frankly, worrying. Double the wage bill and everything will be OK? Because by magic the profit will suddenly appear? Don't you think that they would already be doing that if it were that simple?

Where does the money come from before these magic extra flights start happening? Where do the pilots and aircrew come from?

Agreed. The logic some people use is baffling.

[Rich Boy Spanner]

Worked in aviation for over 30 years, airlines and aircraft engineering. We have been saying for years that the race to the bottom would end in tears. Nobody wants to work at airports because unless you are an air traffic controller, a pilot, aircraft engineer or other decent role the jobs are badly paid and massive hassle. You have to work ugly shifts such a 4am starts but have to arrive at the remote car park an hour before shift and not get out again until an hour after, and people are often expected to do this on zero hour contracts. What do you think supported everyone wanting to fly for next to nothing? The airlines want lower landing fees and lower charges for check-in and baggage handling. So the airports make money from bars and pay low security staff salaries, and the airlines pay for bare minimum check-in and baggage staff. Look at the breakdown of a flight ticket and see how much is tax, and how much you actually are paying to fly in a £40M+ minimum aircraft. People talk about Brexit but it isn't the big deal. What happened was people got laid off during the pandemic, they found other jobs (like at airport city at Manchester working for Amazon in the massive new warehouse), and a lot of European nationals went home during lockdown. The cost model is not sustainable.

[pincher]

Flew LGW to Funchal with EasyJet on Friday - from leaving the short stay car park, to bag drop, to being in Duty Free was just over 20 minutes. I was particularly amazed at how quiet the (automated) bag drop was - we just walked straight up, no queuing at all. Security was pretty much the same as well.

Flew back in last night and other than a bit of a wait to find out which carousel our bags would be on, it was pretty seamless - even the passport e-gates were working properly!

[98elise]

heebeegeetee said:

As for a solution, and I'm talking as a total layman, are the days of cheap air travel well and truly over? Isn't this an issue of far more customers than the industry can cope with, so prices will just go up to a point that determines a customer level, and increased funding can hopefully recruit more staff etc. A shame for families on budgets etc of course.

How much of a problem are passport checks? I don't fly much, but back in mid 2019 I happened to fly in to Stockholm. The gate for EU travellers was empty and we just walked through, but the queue for non-EU travellers was absolutely horrendous, totally unacceptable and bordering on inhumane imo, by first world standards anyway.
Why would they choose to retain so many people in their airport? Those people weren't doing anything, weren't able to spend money, they were just suffering by having to stand in a queue for possibly hours.

Made me realise what we had to look forward to when we formally leave EU, and now here we are, with huge
reported disruption at air and sea ports. Why?

How are cheap flights over? I flew to Tenerife in march for £30. I'm just back from Gran Canaria and the flights were about £100 each. The airport's were full and it was mostly low cost carriers.

There are plenty of low-cost airlines and plenty of passengers wanting to buy their services.

The airport's problem seems to be localised. Both times I flew it was a perfectly normal experience.

Brexit is a factor, however other countries have the same issues so it's not the only issue.

[Blackpuddin]

98elise said:

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

If they paid enough wages they wouldn't be having such trouble recruiting staff. They won't do that so travellers pay in money, time and stress. Not sure why they can't entice more new staff by offering a hiring bonus eg double salary for first three or six months.

Jesus wept. And where do you think the funding for this 'double pay' will come from?

From the extra revenue from the flights they can actually run instead of postpone? Give the training staff more money too while you're at it. Organisation that isn't trimmed to beyond the bone + motivated and properly rewarded staff = everybody happy. Or they could just carry on like they are and scare everyone away from overseas travel. That doesn't sound like much of a future. What's your solution?

What extra flights? There are no extra flights. They are postponing the slots they have. There are no more.

Your over simplification is frankly, worrying. Double the wage bill and everything will be OK? Because by magic the profit will suddenly appear? Don't you think that they would already be doing that if it were that simple?

Where does the money come from before these magic extra flights start happening? Where do the pilots and aircrew come from?

Agreed. The logic some people use is baffling.

At least that's something we can agree on. Read the other posts and you'll see you're agreeing with a mistake by Tyre Smoke.

[brickwall]

El stovey said:

brickwall said:

El stovey said:

In the meantime, there’s simply not enough people wanting to work at airports and so there’s shortages in every area. Salaries can’t improve much to get people as margins are so slim, same with many businesses short of people at the moment. Made worse in an airport as most employees need an ID to work there with all sorts of checks especially airside so that all takes a while also.

There’s also a collective bargaining issue on salaries.

Even if the airlines had the money (which arguably they do for this purpose), they can’t up the salary to attract new recruits - because there are union collective bargaining agreements in place.

Up the salary offer for new recruits = increase everyone’s salary. (Which they can’t afford to do).

But the central issue isn’t lack of employees in airlines (ie aircrew) it’s lack of employees at airports.

Perhaps some airlines are short staffed at the moment but not many.

Most airlines nowadays aren’t employing their own people at airports, those are usually employed by handling agents or ground handling companies or by the airport themselves. That’s where the main shortages are.

You think how many airports an airline operates into. They’re never going to have their own employees at all of those airports, even in the U.K.

Sorry I wasn’t clear - I understand that most of the ground services are outsourced, but the point stands on ground agents employment agreements,

It’s Swissport/Dnata etc. facing this issue, but the airlines taking the public heat. I’m sure the airlines would cover costs for ground agents to increase salaries in a recruitment drive, but not take on liability for higher wages across the entire existing workforce.

[Blackpuddin]

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

Nobody wants to have to deal with angry ranters who prefer yelling to thinking. That goes for airline staff as well as PH posters. It's poor management, greed and selfishness on the airlines' part that makes life miserable for staff and travellers alike.

Nobody has been yelling on here. You've just been called out on your simplistic views. And I wasn't ranting. I was ridiculing your 'solutions'.

Oh well that's all right then, thanks.

[sunbeam alpine]

PositronicRay said:

Prices will have to increase to a realistic level. I was astounded the other day, picked up a visitor from BHX, and realised that he'd only paid Ryan Air £9.99 for the flight from Knock. It cost me more in parking and petrol to collect him.

This. I haven't checked recently but pre-Covid we could fly from Charleroi to pretty much anywhere in Europe on Ryanair for a weekend break - and parking the car at Charleroi airport cost significantly more than the flights.

[captain_cynic]

brickwall said:

Sorry I wasn’t clear - I understand that most of the ground services are outsourced, but the point stands on ground agents employment agreements,

It’s Swissport/Dnata etc. facing this issue, but the airlines taking the public heat. I’m sure the airlines would cover costs for ground agents to increase salaries in a recruitment drive, but not take on liability for higher wages across the entire existing workforce.

It's not really a problem with salaries and more a problem with the length of time it takes to recruit someone.

You can throw all the money you want at it, you can't speed up the security vetting, set up and training parts.

It's like telling me that 9 women can make a baby in 1 month.

[Tyre Smoke]

Blackpuddin said:

Tyre Smoke said:

Blackpuddin said:

Nobody wants to have to deal with angry ranters who prefer yelling to thinking. That goes for airline staff as well as PH posters. It's poor management, greed and selfishness on the airlines' part that makes life miserable for staff and travellers alike.

Nobody has been yelling on here. You've just been called out on your simplistic views. And I wasn't ranting. I was ridiculing your 'solutions'.

Oh well that's all right then, thanks.

You're welcome.