Dates for baggage checks
Air traffic is preparing for a sharp increase in holiday flights
16.06.2024, 03:48
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Air traffic in the summer will rise to pre-coronavirus levels, experts explain. Airports promise to prepare optimally for possible chaos. Appointment bookings and computer tomography scans are intended to prevent unnecessary stress at security checks.
The airports in Germany are facing their next test: With the start of the summer holidays, the infrastructure, which was hit hard during the Corona period, and the people working there will be called upon to cope with a rush of customers that is almost back to the pre-pandemic level. “No more chaos” is the goal of the companies and authorities involved after the negative experiences of 2021 and 2022.
“Passengers should be able to reach their flight safely if they arrive at the airport 2 to 2.5 hours before departure,” says Ralph Beisel from the airport association ADV. The airlines are facing strong demand with their limited supply, as many people want to fly on holiday despite the poor economy. “It will be another very strong summer for travel,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr announced at the end of April, when bookings for the warmer months exceeded the previous year’s figure by 16 percent. For the airlines, this constellation means highly profitable growth, but for customers, ticket prices remain very high.
Hardly any impact from FTI bankruptcy
Two major holiday flight providers, Eurowings and Condor, assure that even the bankruptcy of the tour operator FTI will not lead to any serious economic disadvantages for them. The seats that become available on the planes will quickly be taken over by other tour operators and short-term providers. On a European scale, there will be just as many flights this summer as in the pre-Corona year of 2019. The air traffic control umbrella organization Eurocontrol is registering only minimal downward deviations for the entire continent on a daily basis.
In Germany, however, the rate is only 87 percent of the pre-Corona figure. The reasons for this are permanently canceled domestic flights and the wide arc that direct airlines such as Ryanair are flying around the local market with its high fees and costs. According to figures from the industry association BDL, German airports are nevertheless offering around 6 percent more seats from May to October than in the same period last year. “Our companies have prepared intensively together with the authorities and police departments, hired additional staff and optimized processes in many places,” says BDL General Manager Matthias von Randow.
“There were no major disruptions to Easter travel. Travelers were able to start their vacation without having to wait too long.” Lufthansa says it has hired 1,100 new people in Frankfurt alone and generally feels well prepared for the summer holidays. A similar message can be heard from airport operator Fraport, which also points to the summer of 2023 and the travel waves at Easter and Pentecost, all of which have been managed well. As with the holidays, regular operations are now expected with the waiting times that are usual for the holiday season, says a company spokesperson. As a rule, these can be reduced quickly.
More air traffic controllers ensure significantly fewer delays
The airspace over Germany has become quite crowded again after Corona, as the German Air Traffic Control (DFS) reports. Although the record numbers from 2019 will still be missed significantly this year, the expected three million flights are no longer distributed as regularly as they used to be, explains DFS boss Arndt Schoenemann. Flights to tourist destinations are concentrated especially on weekends. As a result, air traffic controllers in the airport towers and centers have to be deployed much more flexibly. This seems to be paying off: In the first half of the year, which is not quite over, air traffic control caused 50 percent fewer delays than in the same period last year. On average, there were only 0.36 minutes per flight.
Saxony and Thuringia will be the first in the German school holiday series on June 20th. Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen will follow relatively quickly. In the other states, school holidays do not begin until July and the Bavarians will be the last to return home on September 9th. All those responsible have good advice for travelers. After all, passengers themselves can do a lot to ensure that their trips run smoothly. Airports and airlines are relying on digital offerings.
Liquids and electronics can now remain in the suitcase
Luggage can be handed over to a machine in many places and a parking space can be booked in advance. Checking in via smartphone also saves unnecessary waiting at the counter. The bottleneck of passenger checks for aviation security remains. In previous summers there were repeated long queues, for example in Cologne or Düsseldorf. According to the airport association ADV, passengers can now book a time slot for the unpopular control procedure in advance at at least seven German airports.
The Frankfurt-based operator Fraport has now taken over the deployment planning of the private security service providers itself and has also invested in technology. 40 scanners with computer tomography, known from medicine, are to be installed at Germany’s largest airport by summer. Munich also has a number of these devices, which scan luggage in several layers and produce three-dimensional images of the contents in the shortest possible time. Liquids and electronics can therefore remain in the bags – there is no need for cumbersome and time-consuming rummaging around at the security desk.