Passengers urged to bring a ‘plane picnic’

Travellers urged to bring their own food and drink as staff shortages disrupt in-flight meal supplies

Holidaymakers are being told to bring “plane picnics” when travelling which could result in paying over the odds for food at airport terminals. Tui warned that all short-haul and some long-haul flights could take off without on-board catering “in the coming days” because its supplier is plagued by staff shortages. Liquids over 100ml must be purchased after customers clear security and Tui only allows one piece of free hand luggage on board, leaving little room for packed meals.

HOLIDAYMAKERS are being told to bring “plane picnics” when travelling which could result in paying over the odds for food at airport terminals.

Tui warned that all short-haul and some long-haul flights could take off without on-board catering because its supplier is plagued by staff shortages.

The airline told customers to bring their own food and soft drinks in case of disruption to its onboard services.

It means holidaymakers could resort to paying inflated costs for food at airport cafės and terminals.

Liquids over 100ml must be purchased in the airport after customers clear security and Tui only allows passengers to take one piece of hand luggage on board for free, leaving little room for packed meals.

The firm said it was “continuously monitoring the situation and working closely with our suppliers to limit the impact to the onboard service for our customers. We are directly contacting all customers impacted. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused”.

It comes as the entire aviation sector struggles to cope with staff shortages now that international travel has bounced back after the pandemic.

Airports say they are rapidly hiring more staff but they are unable to fasttrack security clearance for new hires. They are also dealing with high levels of staff absence because of coronavirus infections.

The persistent bottlenecks mean airlines are having to cancel or delay flights. Both Birmingham and Manchester airports were asking passengers to start queuing outside the terminal buildings on Monday as they could not get them through security quickly enough.

Passengers described scenes of “absolute chaos” and some missed their flights as a result of the delays.

Birmingham airport, which laid off nearly half of its employees during the pandemic, said queues were “long, but managed and moving", while Manchester said most passengers were passing through security in between 30 and 40 minutes but admitted that queues could be more than double that.

British Airways has cancelled a tenth of its flights from March until the end of October, which is the equivalent of 8,000 round trips.

Easyjet is removing seats from some of its planes to allow them to fly with three cabin crew instead of four, leaving them less vulnerable to staff shortages.

The move will reduce capacity on some of the carrier’s planes from 156 to 150 passengers.

Under UK law, flights must have “one member of the cabin crew for every 50 or fraction of 50 passenger seats installed in the aircraft”.

Easyjet said: “This summer we will be operating our UK A319 fleet with a maximum of 150 passengers onboard and three crew in line with Civil Aviation Authority regulations.

“This is an effective way of operating our fleet while building additional resilience and flexibility into our operation this summer.”