UK airports chaos bad for tourism

Cyprus travel agents fear that a wave of delays and flight cancellations at UK airports may lead to the Mediterranean island’s loss of future holiday bookings.

British holidaymakers have seized the opportunity of school half-term holidays and the Queen’s platinum jubilee bank holidays to take long-awaited trips abroad, but many have met with long queues at airports and cancelled flights.

Thousands of passengers have waited for hours on planes and stood in long queues for their flights.

During the week, there were long queues at check-in and baggage reclaim at many UK airports.

“It’s literally chaos,” said Charis Papacharalambous, the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) spokesperson.

He told the Financial Mirror that long delays and flight cancellations have not yet cost Cyprus’ tourism sector, as tourists from the UK have made their way to Cyprus with a delay of a day or two.

“This, however, has caused tourism stakeholders a series of problems.

“From travel agents having to rebook their flights and accommodation packages to hotels who have to find ways to accommodate guests arriving on different dates than those previously booked,” said Papacharalambous.

He argued that delays at UK airports could cause more problems down the road as some flights are being cancelled, with holidaymakers pushed on to other flights.

“This is creating a domino effect…it could mean that some tourists will get discouraged and either cancel their booking or avoid making plans to go abroad for their summer holidays.

“We hope this will not last long.

“We hoped that Cyprus tourism would be getting a UK boost following the war in Ukraine.”

Noel Josephides, former chairman of the association of independent tour operators (AITO), called it a “serious issue that could derail tourism stakeholders’ plans for some time.”

“Although we feel that problems will be short-lived, it has caused a serious upset to the industry, with many flights from UK airports being cancelled.”

He noted that half-term holidays are traditionally the launchpad for the summer tourist season. This is the first time tourists can travel without any restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic in two years.

“Many consumers saved money when they could not holiday during lockdowns, resulting in pent-up demand for foreign trips.”

Josephides pinned the issues at British airports on Brexit, arguing that staff shortages would not be an issue if the UK had not left the EU.

“A lot of staff were laid off during COVID, with many of them being employed in other sectors and are not willing to return to an airport job.

“If the UK were still in the EU and had not tightened its immigration rules, airport operators and service providers would have easily found staff.”

Many recent problems can be traced to staff shortages amid a lack of available workers and record job vacancies across the British economy.

The surge in demand comes as the aviation industry is still ramping up staff levels after many workers were made redundant or changed jobs during the pandemic.

Following the war in Ukraine, Cyprus looked to increase flows from the UK, traditionally its strongest market, Israel, and emerging players such as France, to make up for a loss of 800,000 tourists from Russia and Ukraine.

Pre-COVID, over 53% of Cyprus’ 4 mln tourists in 2019 came from the UK (33.5%) and Russia (19.7%).

Cyprus had three successive boom years before the pandemic, with British arrivals peaking at 1.4 mln.

COVID-19 battered tourism began its recovery in 2021, but arrivals of holidaymakers were still 50% below the prepandemic record of four million.