Why Are Flights Being Cancelled?

Flight cancellations and airport disruption continued over the Jubilee weekend, leaving potentially thousands of passengers stranded abroad.

Staff shortages has emerged as one of the main reasons, although disagreement remains between the government and industry over who is to blame for this.

Covid restrictions were hugely challenging for the travel industry.

Airlines UK, the industry body for airlines registered in the UK, said airlines cut about 30,000 jobs during the pandemic, having employed 74,000 people in 2019.

Thousands of jobs were also cut from airports and aviation support activities, which used to employ another 66,000 people.

In June 2020, for example, Swissport, which employed about 8,500 staff at UK airports including baggage handlers and security staff, announced it was cutting more than half of them.

The company has now hired 2,800 people since January, although 1,200 of them still do not have full security clearance.

While travel restrictions have been easing gradually, the last restrictions for passengers entering the UK were only lifted on 18 March.

Meanwhile, unions have said that airport staff have been considering whether it is worth returning to airport jobs and are moving to other areas.

The Office for National Statistics said that between February and April 2022 there were a record 1,295,000 job vacancies in the UK.

It takes longer to replace airport staff than other workers because they need security clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority and the government.

There have been reports that the vetting is taking considerably longer than the 14 weeks it usually takes, but the Cabinet Office told BBC News: "There are absolutely no delays to security vetting of applicants. It is wrong to suggest otherwise and we are prioritising vetting applications from the aviation industry."

In order to speed up the process, the government changed the rules at the end of April to allow new staff to receive training while waiting for their vetting, but clearly that will not solve the problems straight away.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary pointed out that Brexit means the industry cannot just bring in young Europeans to alleviate staff shortages.

The government said its ministers had met with industry leaders before half term to ensure that they were prepared.

Now, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said airlines and operators had "seriously oversold flights and holidays".

Gemma Antrobus, chair of the Association of Independent Tour Operators, rejected the government's criticism, blaming a lack of sector-specific support during the pandemic and since.

"Getting back to those levels of staffing, of training is not as quick and as simple as just a flick of a light switch," Antrobus said.

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh called on ministers to address the backlog in security checks for new staff and work with industry to address "chronic low pay".

The government said it had given £8bn of support to the industry during the pandemic, including the furlough scheme, loan guarantees and the Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme, which offered £4m grants to airports and companies providing them with services such as maintenance and cleaning.

Industry leaders warned after disruption to flights in the Easter holidays that the situation would not improve for some time.

According to aviation data firm Cirium, 305 flights departing the UK were cancelled out of total of 10,662 scheduled flights over the Jubilee weekend.

This comes at a tricky time for some families who are trying to return to the UK in time for pupils to sit their GCSEs.

The industry now has less than two months to prepare for the summer holiday peak. That will give some time to recruit and train extra staff, but Advantage Travel Partnership - a network of travel agents - said 30% are fielding calls from holidaymakers concerned about their future bookings.

One advantage of the summer break is that the travel peak is not limited to a single week, as happens at half term.

But the current problems are not isolated to the UK.

There have been long queues at other European airports due to staff shortages in recent weeks including Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and Dublin Airport. Over the weekend Dublin they reported that the issues had now been resolved.