UK airports and airlines are suffering from severe labour shortages amid pent-up demand. Combined with the absence of COVID-19, it’s the perfect storm for an industry desperately trying to emerge from an existential crisis.

For the first time in almost two and a half years, I’m back in my native UK, finally being able to meet family and friends and experience what life is really like under the so-called “new normal”. Brexit. In the 22 years I’ve lived abroad, this is the longest period I’ve spent abroad, but it was a short visit. After arriving at lunchtime on Friday, my wife and I plan to board a flight back to Barcelona tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

As the title of this article suggests, it’s easier said than done, as some UK airports, notably Manchester and Heathrow, as well as ferry ports, have experienced a surge in passenger numbers and severe labour shortages (in part due to ground and flight surge in COVID-19 cases among people), IT outages, severe weather and Brexit chaos.

The chaos coincides with the start of the Easter holiday in many parts of the country. After all COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, many Britons are looking to venture abroad for the first time since the pandemic began. Britain’s flagship airport, Heathrow, estimates that flight demand over the summer holidays could reach 85% of pre-pandemic levels.Spain only in February received 3.15 million tourists, a 1,000% increase from the same month in 2021 and only a 29% decrease from February 2020, before the lockdown began.

In other words, mass tourism is making a comeback, although it’s unclear how long. To meet pent-up demand, many UK airports have expanded their workforces in recent weeks.Take Heathrow Airport as an example, recently Say It is hiring an additional 12,000 employees to cope with the summer peak. This may not be enough.

Airports are already struggling with the Easter rush. On Monday morning, there were reports that British Airways and Easyjet Cancelled With more than 200 sorties per flight, tens of thousands of passengers were stranded. Easyjet alone canceled 222 flights over the weekend and 62 scheduled for Monday, blame the cancellation on A surge in COVID-19 cases among employees has led to staff shortages. Given that around a third of Britons are now infected with the virus, this is a record high, which is not surprising. latest estimate From the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

There have also been problems in Spain as airports brace for record numbers of arrivals from the UK post-pandemic, with Brexit travel rules exacerbating congestion. This was of course the case with our outbound flight from Barcelona, ??which was delayed by half an hour due to long queues at passport control.Alone Palma de Mallorca Handling over 250,000 passengers German and British tourists returned in droves over the weekend.

Back in the UK, many of the cancelled flights on Monday were announced on Saturday’s short notice, leaving many travellers with no choice.easyJet expect Hundreds of flights were cancelled this week as disruptions snowballed.EasyJet spokesperson Say:

“Given the current level of illness, we have also decided to cancel some flights earlier, with a focus on consolidating the flights we have multiple frequencies so that customers have more options to rebook their travel, often on the same day…

“Unfortunately, some additional cancellations are necessary today. We apologise for any inconvenience that may have been caused to passengers on affected flights.

“The customer has been contacted and offered their options, including rebooking an alternate flight or getting a voucher or a full refund. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

England was one of the first countries in Europe to lift all Covid-19 restrictions, including mandatory wearing of masks. The massive lifting of restrictions is largely a political expedient for the government to succumb to a spate of corruption scandals. Boris Johnson’s cabinet has been caught ignoring so many restrictions it has imposed itself that neither it nor the rules have to be lifted. It chose the latter.

Easyjet passengers and crew are still required to wear masks on most flights. But in most other places in England it is not mandatory. As my wife and I discovered when we boarded the cross-county train on Saturday, people seem to be throwing away masks in large numbers. Except for an old gentleman behind us, we were the only passengers in the half-full carriage wearing masks.

The chaos at the airport isn’t just the result of a surge in passenger numbers and staffing shortages caused by the coronavirus; long-standing IT issues have also played a role. according to A report in the Daily Mail said passengers arriving at Heathrow faced serious problems with passport control, with “passengers complaining that only a third of the available electronic gates were in use.” British Airways’ A statement also acknowledged this:

“We are aware of an issue affecting electronic gates, which are manned and operated by Border Force. This issue is affecting some ports of entry and our team is working closely with Border Force to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”

British Airways also suffered an outage in its IT systems, disrupting many of its flights from Terminal 5. This is the second time in the past 5 days that it has experienced a major IT outage at Terminal 5.

These are not new problems. There have been multiple disruptions to electronic gates at Heathrow and other airports over the past six months. On September 24, 2021, the e-passport gate collapsed at Britain’s largest airport due to an IT glitch, causing passengers to queue for nearly three hours in chaos.as the daily telegraph report At the time, the 15 airports with “technical glitches” at electronic gates that read passengers’ passports and locator forms on arrival included Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester:

Gates’ digital readers were cut off from databases against which they automatically checked criminal watchlists and terror suspect.

This meant Border Force officers had to revert to using desktop-based computer links to manually check passengers’ travel documents, resulting in queues of up to 160 minutes.

similar question happened Less than two weeks later, on October 6, at Heathrow. Five weeks later, on November 11, Another nationwide blackout The self-service barrier has kept passengers arriving at airports across the country waiting up to two hours at border control.

Using biometric identifiers, ePassport gates can handle up to 5 passengers every 45 seconds, providing a fast, efficient transit system that minimizes the need for manual labor. But when they fail, which often happens, the job falls to the staff at the passport control desk. Like many organisations today, the UK Border Force is suffering from a severe staff shortage. Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: “We are particularly concerned about the ability of the Border Force to scale up to meet demand”

As for British Airways, it has been under pressure for years to improve its IT systems after a series of disruptions since 2017. that occasion, more than 75,000 passengers were affected when one of the company’s data centers suffered an outage and service failed to move to an alternate facility. In 2019, another BA outage resulted in the cancellation of trips for at least 15,000 passengers.

The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, including endless disruptions, layoffs and furloughs, has made things worse. Like most economies, the UK faces serious challenges in recruiting key workers – at least in terms of what companies are willing to pay. With an official inflation rate of 6.2% and labor shortages affecting many key sectors of the economy, essential workers have far greater bargaining power than before. But many companies in the travel and tourism industry have limited resources after losing money for the past two years and surging prices for almost everything, including energy.

Combined with the absence of COVID-19, it’s the perfect storm for an industry desperately trying to escape the mother of all crises. Its ability to do so will depend on how long current employee absences and labor shortages continue.