The summer holidays began in North Rhine-Westphalia and chaos immediately broke out at the airports in Düsseldorf and Cologne: Long queues formed at check-ins and security controls, and the baggage claim staff could not keep up. But these scenes are not only familiar to travelers from Germany.
“It’s a global problem”
“It’s a global problem,” says flight expert Andreas Wittmer from the University of St. Gallen. Airports in Asia were also desperately looking for staff. During the corona pandemic, many employees changed jobs or were fired. However, there have been staff shortages for years before the pandemic, says Wittmann.
Now the demand for flights has come back faster and stronger than many expected. Those responsible admit to omissions in the planning. But it’s not just the airlines that have been dawdling, says Wittmer. There is also a shortage of staff, from the retailers at the airport to the catering companies that deliver the food to the plane.
Inflation or Corona could depress demand
Air travelers will probably have to deal with long waiting times, flight cancellations and baggage chaos for a long time to come. Because a short-term, effective solution is not in sight. For the airlines and airports, the first thing to do is recruit staff. However, companies can currently only hire a tenth of the necessary new staff, says the expert.
After the end of the summer holidays in September, Wittmer believes that the situation will improve by itself. But inflation and a possible renewed deterioration in the corona situation could also depress demand.
Expert: The state should only intervene when there are security problems
However, there are already suggestions to clear up the mess more quickly. Among other things, the employment of guest workers from Turkey. The federal government is relaxing laws for this. For aviation expert Wittmer, the wrong reaction: “Politics can’t do much. It has to let the market do its thing.” The airlines and airports should take care of the staff shortage themselves.
“As long as there are no security problems, the state does not have to intervene,” he says. However, the expert does not assume that there are no staff in the cockpit and the pilots cannot keep their rest periods or the aircraft can no longer be maintained.