Airlines sold tickets for flights they cannot staff, resulting in cancellations and widespread disruption for holidaymakers as the UK enters a four-day weekend, according to a government minister.
Celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee will take place from Thursday, June 2, to Sunday, June 5.
Airports across Europe have struggled to cope with the rebound in demand but British airports are facing a particularly difficult week because a school half-term holiday coincides with the jubilee events.
Long delays at airports and cancelled fights have forced many people to scrap their getaway plans, while others endured the misery of 12-hour queues.
On Wednesday, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps called for urgent steps to address the causes of mayhem at check-in desks and security, which have been particularly bad at Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester airports.
“We need to make sure there is no repeat of the scenes witnessed over the last few days. Despite government warnings, operators seriously oversold flights and holidays relative to their capacity to deliver,” Mr Shapps said.
“This must not happen again and all efforts should be directed at there being no repeat of this over the summer.”
Airlines had hoped for a bumper summer for passengers after two years of Covid-19 travel restrictions.
But they have struggled to recruit staff after the turmoil of the pandemic, and complained that it is taking longer to hire new employees and vet them for security clearance.
Mr Shapps said that the Conservative-led government had helped the industry by changing the law to speed up the recruitment of staff.
He plans to meet industry officials to find out what has gone wrong and how the current disruption can end.
“I also want to be reassured on their plans for the coming summer holidays,” he said.
“Government has done its part. It is now on airports, airlines and ground handlers to make sure everyone’s well-deserved holidays can go ahead, free from the major disruption we have seen in recent days.”
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab accused airlines of a "lack of preparation" ahead of the holiday surge.
"I don't think the airline operators have done the recruitment that they should have done,” he told Sky News.
All remaining Covid-19 travel rules for people entering the UK were lifted on March 18.
Airlines UK, the industry body representing UK-registered carriers, said the aviation industry did not know when restrictions would be completely removed or how much flying would be possible this summer.
Consumer group Which? said the "blame game" over flight disruption is "no help" to passengers.
Budget airline easyJet called off at least 31 flights at Gatwick on Wednesday, affecting passengers heading to and from destinations such as Bologna, Barcelona, Prague, Krakow and Edinburgh.
British Airways cancelled at least 124 short-haul flights to or from Heathrow on Wednesday. The airline said the cancellations were announced about six weeks ago and customers were notified at the time.
Britain’s flagship carrier in April unveiled a significant scaling back of services over the summer months, pulling about 8,000 round-trips from its schedule until the end of October.
A spokesperson for the airline said staff are “completely focused on three priorities: our customers, supporting the biggest recruitment drive in our history and increasing our operational resilience”.
“We took action to reduce our schedule to help provide certainty for our customers and are giving them maximum flexibility to either rebook with us or another airline as close to their original departure time as possible, or to receive a full refund,” the representative said.
Travel company Tui on Tuesday announced the cancellation of 186 flights to and from Manchester Airport.
‘Adults and children were crying’
Hannah Taundry, 32, from Staffordshire in the West Midlands, was forced to wait around for hours for her Tui flight at Birmingham Airport on Monday before being sent home after it was cancelled.
The mother of two who works as a theatre practitioner in a hospital had been due to fly to Burgas in Bulgaria with her sons Harry, 11, and Noah, 8, and her boyfriend Shane Deakin, 34, for a much-anticipated sun holiday.
Their flight had originally been scheduled to depart at 5.10pm but after a six-hour delay and a lot of tears they and their fellow travellers were told to go home because the flight would not be operating.
Ms Taundry told The National it was “hard work” trying to keep her two boys comfortable as they waited in a crowded departure area.
“It was awful,” she said. “There were adults crying, there were children crying. Everyone was tired and I was just trying to calm them down.
“The lack of communication was the worst bit. We did not see any Tui representative at all over the six-hour delay. In the end we ended up having to talk to the police. We also asked a baggage handler who said he didn’t have a clue what was going on.
“This is our summer holiday and we’ve waited two years for it.”
After hours of searching for answers, news that the flight had been cancelled eventually filtered through to the group of exasperated passengers from a coach driver in Bulgaria.
“It was a private transfer and [the driver] called one of the passengers at the airport and told him the flight had been cancelled,” Ms Taundry said. “At this point we didn’t know. There wasn’t one Tui rep after six hours of delay.”
After police ordered the group of passengers to leave the departure lounge they were forced to wait a further 90 minutes to retrieve their bags before making their way home.
The flight was rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but Ms Taundry said her ordeal left her with little hope that Tui would stay true to its word this time around.
“I have prepared my children that the flight probably won’t go ahead,” she said. “I am not very confident. They are very disappointed and very sad about it.”
