Staff shortages due to Corona
Lufthansa boss warns of flight cancellations
4/9/2022, 4:47 p.m
The airports in Germany are desperately looking for staff. The industry is feeling the aftermath of the Corona crisis, when at times hardly anyone boarded a plane and jobs were cut. Lufthansa boss Spohr has another bad news for travelers.
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr warns of further flight cancellations in spring and summer due to the lack of staff at the airports. As early as this weekend, when the Easter holidays start in many federal states, Lufthansa will have to cancel a three-digit number of flights, Spohr said in an interview with the newspaper “Switzerland at the weekend”.
When asked whether there was a threat of flight cancellations in spring and summer, he replied: “Unfortunately yes, I’m very worried about that.” Aviation sees strong catching-up effects after two years of the corona pandemic. “The desire to travel has accumulated, and for some destinations our bookings are even higher than in 2019.” For private travel, he expects a full recovery in 2023. “I’m more skeptical about business trips.”
There is a lack of staff at the airports because jobs were cut during the Corona crisis and people are now desperately looking for employees. Fraport, for example, wants to hire 1,000 new employees at the largest German airport in Frankfurt am Main this year, but has only found around 300 of them. The search for new staff is proving to be difficult because some of the employees affected by short-time work in the course of the crisis have migrated to other sectors.
“Tickets are getting more expensive, that’s for sure”
In addition, the job market in Germany, but also in Europe, is relatively empty, said Fraport manager Alexander Laukenmann beforehand. “This means that we are somewhat delayed in building up the necessary qualified personnel to deal with these travel peaks that are now occurring,” said the Fraport division manager Aviation.
Because of the rising kerosene prices, Lufthansa boss Spohr also announced higher prices for flight tickets. “Tickets are getting more expensive, that’s for sure,” he told the Schweizer Zeitung. “If the price of oil goes up $10 a barrel, the ticket price goes up $10 on average,” he calculated. For the aviation industry, the Lufthansa boss expects a continuation of the consolidation. “Some European airlines won’t make it.” That’s why he expects further takeovers by the big airlines. Lufthansa itself, together with the Swiss shipping company MSC, submitted an offer to take over the Italian state airline ITA.