Back in the nick of time
YOU will forgive me, I hope, if I write this with a certain degree of smugness tinged with profound relief. But there are no other emotions appropriate to the occasion, since we were fortunate enough not merely to have taken a holiday in Greece early in the season but to have made it back before monumental chaos overtook the UK travel industry.
We did have a hint of what was coming when, having suffered only a slightly nail-biting delay in our ferry connection, we arrived back at Gatwick merely an hour behind schedule (which counts as normal anyway these days) only to be informed by the pilot, as we sat motionless on the Tarmac, that he hadn’t been allocated a gate.
And then when he had and we got there to discover that the air bridge wasn’t functioning and was stuck a tantalising two yards from the aircraft door and they had to go and track down some technicians to fix it.
But it was when we got down to baggage reclaim that we realised something was up because the hall was rammed with hundreds of people who were still waiting for their luggage and had been doing so for more than two hours. As at least two of them told me with barely concealed bitterness and scorn as ours miraculously appeared on the carousel within a minute or so and I skipped merrily off towards the exit with the correct complement of cases.
But then it was all downhill to a string of headlines proclaiming Chaos! Mayhem! Carnage! and other dire circumstances as it became clear neither airports nor airlines were ready to shift into top gear as the post-Brexit rush engulfed them and the recriminations started.
Apparently ministers had been warned of the potential problem months ago and had done nothing about it. But that’s par for the course for ministers in general and for the current shoddy bunch in particular. Ministers were, after all, warned six years ago that the country was totally unprepared for a pandemic and did nothing about that either.
But what is already happening is a shot in the arm for the domestic tourist industry, particularly in the South West.
Families who had booked holidays abroad are taking the view that they would prefer to travel with more than a rucksack; would rather their plane left within 24 hours of its scheduled departure; and have some rough idea of when they might return.
And accordingly are cutting their losses and heading for British resorts. No substitute, perhaps, if you are seeking searing temperatures and balmy seas but at least you can get there and back with some certainty.
Indeed, compared with the horrors of being stuck in the hell-hole that is Gatwick only to see your flight wiped from the board and to discover all the staff from the airline which so readily helped you empty your wallet to pay for it have now conveniently disappeared behind the concealed doors installed for that very purpose, three hours sitting in a jam on the M5 seems like a holiday in itself.
The only problem being that once they have reached their holiday destination they are likely to find businesses affected by the same staff shortages as airports and airlines and in the case of many restaurants and cafes accordingly only able to open for one service, either lunchtime or evening.
Where all the staff who once worked in the sector have gone is a matter for conjecture. Many Eastern Europeans have returned whence they originated while others discovered during furlough that other sectors paid better wages.
But this is not a uniquely British problem. An acquaintance who was holidaying in Greece mentioned to his hotelier host that he was a landscape gardener and was offered a grounds manager’s job on the spot. A post would be created for his wife, accommodation would be thrown in and the four winter months when the business was closed would be treated as paid holiday.
An attractive offer indeed were it not for the horrendous amount of paperwork and bureaucracy taking up such an offer would entail thanks to one of those many benefits of Brexit that Jacob Rees-Mogg is so keen to talk up.