Holidaymakers have been warned to expect further delays and cancellations due to a number of meticulous reasons.
Over the bank holiday, airports across the UK experienced horrendous queues with some reports stating customers had to wait outside.
Customers of British Airways, easyJet and TUI were those affected by the flights and some easyJet flights flying into Glasgow Airport were also cancelled.
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As reported by the Mirror, issues with staffing are reported as being one of the reasons why so many flights are being cancelled.
It's thought that airports are struggling to fill low-paid positions such as baggage handler roles while airlines are struggling with low staff after the pandemic.
One anonymous baggage handler told the BBC: "The problem is that during furlough some were asked to take on paid leave, maybe be laid off temporarily.
"Yeah we're going to put you on hold, when everything comes back to normal you'll be the first person to be employed'. That went on.
"And people have financial commitments, so they moved on. I know one (baggage handler) who has ended up being a fireman.
"Another colleague, he is running his own restaurant. Some decided to go back to their country, some are working as plumbers and electricians.
"I can tell you, about three days ago one of those people was travelling through the airport and he was saying it's the best decision of his life."
The recruitment process isn't straight forward as security reasons means that positions are hard to fill quickly and references need to be gathered from previous employers.
This can be time consuming for people who have worked several jobs during the pandemic.
Europe's largest airline association, Airlines for Europe admit that they expect the issue to continue across the UK and Europe “for a good chunk of the summer season” the Financial Times reports.
The group, whose members include EasyJet, British Airways owner IAG and Ryanair, blamed a series of factors for the chaos.
These include staff shortages, long waits for new staff to pass background checks and also higher than normal sickness rates due to covid related reasons.
Another reason thought to be impacting the travel industry is Brexit, which led to a shortage of workers as many Europeans who may have come to the UK for work are no longer able to.
Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan urged the Government, over the weekend, to relax visa rules to deal with the staff shortages at airports, as they did with haulage drivers.
Speaking on BBC 1's Sunday Morning, Mr Khan said: “The government should recognise that there are shortages in this occupation, of those who work in aviation.
"What you can do very easily is to make sure those who were in those jobs before, who’ve gone back to their country of origin in the EU, are encouraged to come back."
However, this was heavily denied by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
He told interviewer Sophie Raworth: “The answer can’t always be to reach for the lever marked ‘More immigration’.”
“We are seeing the same problems across Europe. If it were only to do with Brexit, then there wouldn’t be a problem at Schiphol (airport in Amsterdam) or elsewhere. So that clearly can’t be true."
In a bid to control the issue, British Airways recently decided to cut 8,000 roundtrips from its March to October timetable, giving customers notice to reschedule.
The airline has said the challenges facing the aviation industry, since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, are enormous in their scale.
EasyJet made a similar move as it cancelled several hundred flights in April and grounded dozens in May, as well as a cancelling a further 80 on Sunday.
Globally the industry lost more than £145bn and an estimated four million jobs since the start of the pandemic, with the knock on impact on staffing levels still being felt to this day.
EasyJet alone cut 1,400 jobs at the beginning of 2021, while BA axed 10,000 during the pandemic, eventually rehiring about 4,000 as of last summer.
A BA spokesperson said that ramping up capacity from 30 to 80 per cent in a short space of time was "always going to be challenging, but this is being faced by the industry and not just us".
They added: "The past few weeks have been challenging for the entire industry and at British Airways we're completely focused on three priorities: our customers, supporting the biggest recruitment drive in our history and increasing our operational resilience.
"We've taken 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."
An easyJet spokesperson said: "easyJet is operating around 1,650 daily flights across the network, carrying around a quarter of a million people each day."
Meanwhile, due to 'ongoing disruption'. TUI announced that it was cancelling a number of flights from Manchester until the end of June covering destinations in Spain and the island, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. The travel provider says all affected customers have been told.
