Irish holidaymakers are facing a summer of discontent with thousands of flights being cancelled and massive queues in airports, with one expert warning: “The chaos is unpredictable”.
Yesterday it emerged that hundreds of staff and unions in airports right across Europe have called for strikes, resulting in airlines being forced to cancel their flights.
The threat of ongoing industrial action from airport and airline staff in popular holiday spots such as Portugal, France and Spain is set to hit Irish sun-seekers hard.
Daa last night admitted that there will be major challenges over the summer months, as they try to get thousands of Irish families off on their holidays.
It comes just weeks after hundreds of flights in Dublin Airport were missed as queues spilled outside Terminal One for hours, due to a shortage in security staff.
However, experts believe that these scenes are set to become the norm during the summer as strikes and staff shortages will cause chaos abroad, which will impact Ireland.
Travel Expert Eoghan Corry said any issues abroad will surely impact Ireland and added that the problems in Dublin Airport were nowhere near resolved.
He told the Irish Mirror: “Dublin Airport is still an accident waiting to happen. While we haven’t had missed flights, we have security queues and one hour check ins which is just too long.
“The problem there is everything is stretched, so I don’t know how anything can be avoided because we don’t have the staff yet. Look at Dublin Airport, there are shortages among staff, including security, baggage handling, check in, and obviously these problems are delaying the airlines.”
Mr Corry said there will also be problems for the airlines in making sure all their flights can leave Ireland for European destinations.
He added: “While Aer Lingus and Ryanair are the bigger operators, everything will be squeezed regardless.
“British Airways made the right call by cutting their summer schedule by 20%.
“They did that early in the day, they saw the staff shortages and made the decision to do this, and it was the right one. They have less summer flights, the number is way down, on what was proposed.
“But every single airline is facing this issue.
“There were scary pictures of big baggage issues in Heathrow on Friday.
Baggage handling and delays and bags lost; these are issues that are happening all around us.”
He added: “No doubt it is a summer of everything being scaled down, because we scaled down for Covid and everyone has to scale back up and the numbers returning to flying are a little bit higher and not what we expected.
“That is enough to put strain on the airlines.
“The chaos is unpredictable, you could end up in a one-hour queue in a Spanish airport at immigration, which will be less of a problem for Ireland than Britain because of Brexit, but these are the things that are looming.
“Then throw in cranky children, a backlog in passports and jobs cuts. There is no way of avoiding this. We are in for a very challenging summer for flying and we might as well get used to it.”
He said several hour long queues in roaring temperatures are also on the cards for the summer.
Meanwhile, seven unions for Ryanair in Italy, France, Portugal, Belgium, and Spain are warning of a cabin crew strike.
While the Portuguese and Spanish cabin staff have already announced a strike in late June and July.
Spanish police are hiring 500 staff to cope with their busiest airports in Madrid and Barcelona.
There is a shortfall of 2,000 workers in Germany, while one of Europe’s busiest airports Schiphol has agreed to pay 15,000 cleaners, baggage handlers, and security €5.25 extra per hour for summer work.
Their staff was reduced from 68,000 to 58,000 since Covid.
Meanwhile, in a statement to the Irish Mirror last night, Kevin Cullinane, daa Group Head of Communications, said the recent measures introduced at the airport have worked well over the past three weeks.
He said: “Over the past week, which has seen more than 650,000 passengers travelling through Dublin Airport, the vast majority of passengers have been getting through security screening in less than 45 minutes, although at busy times this has extended to around 60 minutes.
“We continue to advise passengers travelling over the coming weeks to arrive at Dublin Airport 2.5 hours before a short-haul flight and 3.5 hours before a long-haul flight. Those checking a bag are advised to allow for up to an additional hour if they can by checking with their airline.”
However, Mr Cullinane admitted that airports across Europe, the UK, the USA and further afield are looking to cope with the rapid accelerated recovery in international air travel, that he said wasn’t forecast until 2024 or 2025 at the earliest.
“Simultaneously airlines, airports and the entire supply chain are trying to increase staffing levels to required levels to service this demand,” he said.
“We note the decision taken by some airports in Europe and the UK to cancel flights. DAA is keen to avoid such action at Dublin Airport and we remain fully committed to ensuring we get our staffing levels and operations where they need to be to cope with rising passenger numbers.
“This will ensure that thousands of Irish families will get away on their summer holidays over the coming weeks and months, many of whom have not been able to get away since 2019 due to the global pandemic of the previous two years.”
In a statement last night, Aer Lingus said: “Last autumn, Aer Lingus announced our Summer 2022 schedule and our intent to return capacity to over 90% of 2019 levels by the summer peak.
“Since then we have put significant planning and effort into delivering on that ambition, including appropriate recruitment and resourcing.
“The things within our control are working well, but unfortunately the issues that are outside of our control – such as services provided by airports and third party suppliers – are adding elevated levels of disruption to our service.
“Staffing shortages and supply chain issues at Dublin and other European airports and among third party suppliers are sometimes resulting in our customers experiencing a level of service below what they expect.
“We wish to reassure our customers that we are working closely with all airports and third party suppliers to resolve these challenges as efficiently as possible.”
