Flight delays, cancellations affect airports of Britain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain
By Mohamed Attia
At a time when Cairo International Airport is witnessing a ratio among the best in the world in terms of flight departure and landing dates and the regularity of baggage movement, many airports in the world, especially the main European airports, as well as a number of American airports are witnessing a state of confusion and chaos currently causing delays and cancellations of thousands of flights and passengers’ bags.
That has confused travel plans and hotel reservations for tourists.
According to statistics issued by the European Airports Association, 66 per cent of European airports are expected to experience confusion in their flights between delays and cancellations, as well as the failure of passengers’ bags through a number of major European airports in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and others. Meanwhile, thousands of flights were exposed in each of America and Canada for delays and cancellations.
The greatest common denominator in the state of chaos in a number of European airports is the lack of trained workers and strikes by some working crews, whether at airports or airlines, after many airlines and airports dispensed a large number of workers during the coronavirus crisis.
With the return of travel and its recovery strongly in most parts of world after the pandemic, there is a need for a greater number of trained employees to operate airports and airline flights, which is urgent now after layoffs over the past two years, during which the global aviation industry lost about 4 million jobs since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Travel experts believe that the state of confusion and chaos in the aviation sector in Europe will greatly affect the movement of travel during the current summer season in many airports in the world and the regularity of operating flights of non-European airlines that operate daily flights to European airports.
Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports in the United Kingdom were among the British airports that had a large share of cancellations and delays of thousands of flights in the past weeks.
British Airways had to cancel thousands of flights during the current summer season. About 10% of flights were canceled earlier this week. The authorities of Gatwick, Britain’s second-busiest airport, also announced that they would put a cap on departure and landing flights this summer, and only about 825 departure and landing flights will be allowed in July, and only about 850 daily operations will be allowed in August.
Germany’s airports witnessed flight disruption as well, as Lufthansa announced that it would cancel nearly 1,000 flights this July due to a lack of trained staff.
This will mainly affect the two main airports in Germany, Frankfurt and Munich, especially on weekends, the company announced.
Meanwhile, the German government announced that it will hire about 2,000 trained workers from Turkey to work in German airports to fill its shortage.
The state of confusion in German airports has led to the cancellation of thousands of flights in the past few weeks for Lufthansa, and the company’s CEO apologised to travellers for the chaos.
He stressed that Lufthansa is currently recruiting new employees, especially in Europe, but stressed that the results of recruitment will not bear the desired fruits except in the winter season.
At the French Charles de Gaulle airport, the travel crisis worsened, as many flights were canceled with the last-minute cancellations continuing and as the lack of staff led to the adjustment of operating schedules with some labour strikes.
The French Civil Aviation Authority asked to reduce flights by 17% from Charles de Gaulle Airport due to the firefighters’ strike.
KLM canceled about 62 flights, while maintaining the operation of long flights and 90% of short and medium flights.
In Belgium, Brussels International Airport is facing severe travel disruptions, and the airport has already seen at least 315 canceled flights, confusing the travel plans of more than 40,000 passengers.
The largest airport in the Netherlands has set a ceiling on the number of passengers at the airport per day this summer in a precedent that has not happened before.
This comes after passengers had to wait for long hours outside the airport just to reach the counters to finish the procedures, as well as the security inspection queues, where the airport experienced a severe shortage of workers and employees, leading to the cancellation of many flights or the delay in their arrival.
EgyptAir had announced that, based on the instructions issued by Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in the Netherlands for all airlines operating in it, including EgyptAir, it is necessary to limit and reduce the daily capacity of operating at the airport and the resulting number of passengers traveling daily from Amsterdam for all airlines.
