The Government and travel bosses have come under renewed fire over the continuing chaos afflicting travellers at Manchester Airport. Trafford council - a shareholder in the airport - has passed a motion describing the Government's response to the crisis in the aviation sector as "lamentable".
The new managing director of the airport Chris Woodroofe is now to be invited to talk to councillors of the authority adjacent to the airport over what improvements can be made. At a full meeting of Trafford council, an amended resolution said the 22-point plan announced by the Government at the end of June "came far too late to prevent the disruptions experienced at the beginning of the year and in April and May".
It said that whilst improvements had been made to the security operation at the airport, much of the chaos experienced as the holiday season approached was "the responsibility of airlines and private baggage handling companies".
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The resolution went on: "Many of these operators made huge numbers of their employees redundant instead of accepting extended furlough arrangements whilst continuing to sell holidays and flights they could never hope to fully resource.
"The arrangements at the UK border, where long queues to re-enter the UK have been experienced, are due to the resourcing decisions of the UK Border Agency, which is ultimately the responsibility of the UK Government."
The Labour-controlled council has resolved to write to Mr Woodroofe to invite him to meet with Trafford's elected members to set out the airport's plan to improve its performance in conjunction with the airport operators and airlines they work with.
An addition to the resolution - accepted by the council - from the Liberal Democrat group blamed Britain's withdrawal from the European Union for the staffing problems at UK airports with a reported 250,000 European workers leaving following Brexit.
"With a reduced pool of applicants for jobs, many sectors including aviation are finding recruitment more difficult as a result of Brexit," their amendment said.
In the first three months of 2022, Manchester Airport had 72.3 per cent of its flights leave on time - the lowest percentage across the 26 airports in the UK.
Councillor Liz Patel described her own experience on May 28, when she waited "eight miserable hours" at Manchester Airport before being informed by text message that the flight for her family holiday - booked two years ago - had been cancelled.
"We spent a further two hours waiting in a sea of abandoned luggage before we could go home," she said. "This was a shocking and unpleasant experience for me and my family, one which thousands of others have experienced too."
But she went on: "It wasn't Manchester Airport that failed to provide a pilot for my flight or the airport that was responsible for the baggage chaos. It was [travel company] TUI and [aviation services company] Swissport - two companies that announced mass redundances during 2020 and 2021.
"This is evidenced by unions who said that by the end of 2021 more than 60,000 people have lost their jobs in UK airports. Firms banking on workers queueing up to re-enter the industry post-Covid have e learned the hard way that loyal trained staff aren't so disposable after all.
"People found better offers and pay and have been lost by the aviation industry for good."
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