Travel chaos: a summer of broken dreams
The email every middle-class parent dreads arrived in my inbox last week, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times: “Unfortunately, your flight to Palma has been cancelled.” Cue pandemonium as we rushed to find a new flight, rearrange rental cars and contact the organisers of the villa to inform them about our revised travel plans. It’s an experience that many have endured over recent months, and that many more will go through during the holiday season, along with endless airport queues and long waits for baggage. “The chaos this summer will make the fall of Saigon look like a slight altercation at a ties-only gastropub in Henley. Airports will be full of crying women in Heidi Klein kaftans banging their fists on check-in desks.”
It’s a fretful time for those dreaming of a summer escape, said The Daily Telegraph. In the wake of the pandemic, airports across the world are struggling to restore staff levels to meet demand. The problem is particularly bad in Europe, where flight cancellations are running at almost triple the rate of 2019. It’s hardly surprising that, in a tight labour market, the aviation industry is finding it hard to recruit, said Ben Clatworthy in The Times. “Hours are antisocial, the pay can be woeful, and the passengers rude.” Baggage-screening agents at Manchester Airport earn just £11.16 an hour. Cabin crew can no longer count on spending much downtime in exotic locations; work for a low-cost carrier and you’ll be back home every night.
But four months on from the end of travel restrictions, it’s absurd that flights are still being cancelled at the 11th hour, said Rory Boland in The i Paper. The Government has unveiled a 22-point plan to save summer travel, but it’s little more than a list of aims. To really help, it should give the Civil Aviation Authority the power to fine airlines that flout the rules on late cancellations. By law, airlines are meant to put passengers on the next flight to their location, including those of rival carriers. But many, if they contact customers at all, just offer a flight in a few days’ time, or a refund. The likes of EasyJet and BA would “quickly learn not to overbook when faced with the financial penalty of rebooking their customers on Jet2 or Virgin Atlantic at the last minute”.