As an easyJet boss pointed the finger of blame at airports, an American airline flew an empty jet to the UK to retrieve hundreds of lost luggage caught up in Britain’s travel mayhem.
Due to a luggage backlog at the west London transport hub, Delta Air Lines despatched the Airbus SE A330-200 to Heathrow Airport last night to retrieve the bags.
The bottleneck began earlier this month when a technical issue caused thousands of bags to pile up outside Terminal 2, leading some to refer to it as a “sea of luggage.”
It comes as EasyJet Holidays CEO Garry Wilson said that the airline has taken “every step within its power” to avoid flight cancellations and strengthen the resilience of its scheduling.
In an effort to avoid a repeat of the chaotic airport scenes seen over the Easter Holidays, the low-cost airline cancelled more than 4,000 flights in the three months leading up to the end of June.
We’ve done all within our power to assure system resilience, Mr. Wilson told the BBC.
There could be further issues, such as infrastructural issues at airports or delays in air traffic control.
The disorderly scenes at airports have been attributed to travel agencies.
Following the relaxation of Covid restrictions earlier this year, airlines and airports have been accused of failing to adequately prepare for the resumption of foreign travel.
However, airlines and airports have retaliated by blaming the government, claiming that by refusing to extend the Covid furlough scheme for holiday corporations until all travel restrictions had been eased, the government forced businesses to undertake job losses.
Mr. Wilson denied the allegation that EasyJet had not made adequate preparations for the summer.
No, I believe we did all the appropriate actions given the knowledge we had at the time, he answered.
We increased our system resilience as soon as we became aware of the strain by booking flights.
At least 91,500 passengers will have their plans disrupted this summer as a result of Heathrow management’s announcement of a previously unheard-of daily flight cap as airport instability continues to damage UK travelers.
Heathrow instructed airlines to cancel 10,000 flights on Monday as a result of the 100,000 daily cap going into force yesterday. The restrictions will be in place until September 11.
Heathrow previously anticipated an average of 104,000 daily departure passengers in the upcoming months, so airport managers also ordered UK airlines to “stop selling summer tickets to reduce the impact on customers.”
But one airline, Emirates, has said it will defy a directive from Heathrow Airport ordering it to cancel flights in order to adhere to a cap on passenger numbers, calling the directive “completely absurd.”
The airline issued the following statement: “LHR (London Heathrow) gave us 36 hours to comply with capacity cuts, of a number that seemed to have been conjured out of thin air last evening.
They threatened legal action if we didn’t comply, in addition to specifying which flights we should terminate paying customers on.
These requests are completely ridiculous and unacceptable, and we reject them.
The statement said, “Emirates plans to operate as scheduled to and from LHR until further notice.”
There were lines at Heathrow, Birmingham, and Manchester airports today, less than a fortnight before the majority of families’ state school summer vacations began.
This is even before the travel season has begun.
Another father revealed that he has been fighting for 14 weeks to get a passport for his eight-year-old daughter in order to take her on her first international vacation, adding to the ongoing problem with delays at the passport office.
However, not just Britons must deal with the transport congestion.
On the eighth day of the Ryanair Spanish crews’ strike over compensation, hundreds of customers in Spain experienced delays and cancellations yesterday.
In addition, amid turmoil at airports throughout the continent, Lufthansa, a German airline, stated it would cancel 2,000 more flights, most of which were domestic.
It happens after a Delta Airlines flight carrying 1,000 misplaced luggage from Heathrow to Detroit yesterday.
Following the cancellation of its regular service between London and the US city on Monday as a result of Heathrow’s decision to impose an extraordinary 100,000 cap on daily leaving passengers until September, the airline took this action.
Instead, passengers were transferred to alternate flights, which allowed Delta to convey mountains of luggage on an empty Airbus SE A330-200.
‘Delta personnel found a unique solution to move delayed checked bags from London-Heathrow on July 11, when a regularly planned flight had to be cancelled due to airport passenger volume constraints at Heathrow,’ the spokesman for Delta continued. 1,000 bags were returned to the US on Delta aircraft 9888 from Heathrow to the Detroit hub, where crews then sent the bags to our clients.
The flight comes after Heathrow instructed airlines to stop marketing summer tickets as airports all over the UK struggle with a staffing shortage in the aviation industry and offer their sincere apologies to passengers for the lengthy lines and baggage problems that have been troubling vacationers for weeks.
The extraordinary action places a cap on the number of travelers who can depart the airport up until September 11th.
In addition to the thousands of flights canceled in recent months, it will result in additional cancellations.
As the cause of the cancellations will be deemed to be outside the control of airlines, impacted customers will not be eligible for compensation.
When managers found it difficult to hire enough staff due to severe labor shortages in the UK during the pandemic, the airport first descended into pandemonium in March.
Due to a lack of staff, there are now mountains of unclaimed bags next to the baggage belts and customers must wait weeks to reunite with their clothing and other essentials.
Industry data released yesterday revealed that Britain is the main European nation with the second-highest rate of airline cancellations.
Only Germany has experienced a greater percentage of passenger flight cancellations this year, at 2%. Italy dropped 1.1% and France lost 1.5%.
Late in February, when more than 5.5% of UK services were canceled, the crisis was at its worst. At the beginning of this month, it was 3%.
According to data compiled by travel intelligence company OAG, the likelihood of a flight being canceled in 2022 is 2.5 times more than it would be in 2019.
British Airways has canceled the most flights to the UK (3.5%), more than 12 times as many as cheap competitor Ryanair (0.3%), which was the top-performing major airline globally. EasyJet reduced costs by 2.8%.
Stansted, the top-performing UK hub, with a cancellation rate that was ten times lower than Gatwick, the poorest airport.
Compared to Stansted’s 0.3%, more than 3% of flights from Gatwick were cancelled.
The West Sussex airport had its worst month of the year in June, with one out of every 14 flights failing to take off.
The majority were flights operated by EasyJet, which this summer eliminated more than 10,000 services.
This summer, BA, which also uses Gatwick but primarily flies into and out of Heathrow, has canceled more than 30,000 flights.
The report, which covers the period from January 1 to July 10, excludes the 10,300 flights BA canceled last week for later this summer.
In an effort to prevent the chaotic situations observed in recent months, such as last-minute cancellations and lengthy lines at check-in counters and baggage collecting halls, both Gatwick and Heathrow have capped departures.
Due in part to a competitive labor market and difficulties in attracting and retaining employees, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye has warned that disruption may last up to 18 months.
It comes as the new airport director of the UK issued a warning today saying he cannot guarantee customers a “wonderful” experience” this summer due to lines, delays, and cancellations.
The managing director of Manchester Airport, Chris Woodroofe, stated that he anticipates “the vast majority” of travelers to have a comfortable experience over the holiday season, but he also acknowledged that he is still having trouble filling positions, which means there will be longer lines, sometimes outside of departures.
There will be instances where that doesn’t happen, and I apologize in advance, he said, adding that the majority of people will “go through security in 30 minutes, hop on their plane, and fly away.” We want everyone to move on, so that’s a sad thing that happened.
The aviation sector must now make a significant effort to rehabilitate after Covid. Airports, airlines, ground handlers, and border control are included.
These organizations are all putting forth their largest recruitment campaign to date. The truth is that we are still hiring.
According to Cyrus Dana, the head of security at Gatwick Airport, they want to keep employing through 2023.
He told the BBC that joining a line outside of the departure area would only happen on extremely rare instances over the impending summer vacation.
However, I can encourage people to consider that the line will thin out very fast,’ he said, adding that he was still certain that 90% of people will pass through security in ten minutes.
A representative for Gatwick indicated that capacity expansion would be done carefully.
Storms were to blame for the disruption in February, when one in every seven of BA’s flights were canceled in a single week.
Additionally, it experienced an IT issue around the end of March.
Airlines laid off a lot of workers when we entered Covid, according to John Grant, chief analyst at OAG.
“Those employees found jobs elsewhere during that two-year furlough period, and they haven’t come back to the industry.”
Their security policies will have lapsed for individuals who have returned.
They must undergo the same examination and procedure that they did two years earlier.
It comes after Heathrow Airport received criticism from the head of airlines for imposing an unprecedented 100,000 cap on daily leaving passengers until September.
After airlines forecasted a significant increase in traffic, Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), claimed the airport should have organized itself.
The former CEO of British Airways told Reuters, “They certainly got it utterly wrong.”
As airports struggle with a manpower shortage throughout the aviation industry and apologize to consumers for the lengthy lines and luggage problems that travelers have had to put up with for weeks, Heathrow also ordered airlines to stop selling summer tickets.
The extraordinary action will place a cap on how many people can depart the airport between July 12 and September 11.
Over that time, airlines planned to operate flights with an average daily capacity of 104,000 seats, which means that further cancellations are likely.
In order to minimize the impact on travelers, Heathrow claimed it has ordered airlines to “stop selling summer tickets.”
In addition to the thousands of flights canceled in previous months, the measure will result in additional cancellations.
As the cause of the cancellations will be deemed to be outside the control of airlines, impacted customers will not be eligible for compensation.
Due to a staffing deficit caused by the thousands of employees that were fired or departed the sector during COVID, passengers have been affected by delays and cancellations at airports throughout the UK.
10,000 travellers were inconvenienced by yesterday’s 61 additional last-minute Heathrow aircraft cancellations.
Additionally, in yet another evidence of instability, easyJet passengers’mutinied’ yesterday after being made to wait for four hours on the runway at Gatwick Airport.
They had to wait “till midnight” to get their luggage after being brought back to the terminal because the jet never even took off.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye made the announcement of the passenger cap yesterday.
He said: “Over the past few weeks, as departing passenger numbers have regularly exceeded 100,000 a day, we have started to see periods when service drops to a level that is not acceptable.”
According to Mr. Holland-Kaye, issues include long wait times, delays for passengers who need assistance, bags that do not travel with passengers or arrive late, poor punctuality, and last-minute cancellations.
He claimed that the reason for this is a combination of increased passenger traffic that is “starting to exceed the combined capacity of airlines, airline ground handlers, and the airport,” along with poor punctuality of arrivals caused by delays at other airports and in European airspace.
He continued, “Our colleagues are working extremely hard to evacuate as many passengers as they can, but we cannot jeopardize their safety and wellbeing.”
According to aviation expert Julian Bray, there will be delays at UK airports during the spring of 2019.
All airport aviation employees must receive security clearance, which currently takes between three and six months, thus staffing shortages persist.
Many applicants are finding work elsewhere at this time.
When asked what passengers should do if their flights are canceled, he responded:
“Passengers who have flights canceled are entitled to compensation and, if available, a flight on another airline.
They should maintain contact with their airline, travel agency, and vacation provider.”
“While the decision to curb passenger numbers will no doubt be inconvenient to many travelers hoping to jet away over the coming months, it is vital if we’re to see a change away from the travel mayhem of recent months,” said Nicky Kelvin, Head of The Points Guy UK.
According to the data, Heathrow has reached its limit for the number of passengers it can now accommodate.
If you are still considering a vacation, we urge you to schedule your departure point appropriately.
If possible, be flexible with your travel dates or think about starting your journey from another London or U.K. airport.
EasyJet passengers were detained on a runway for four hours yesterday in sweltering circumstances, the latest illustration of the dysfunction engulfing UK airports.