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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Elias Visontay and Maddie Thomas

Short-staffed Australian airports in chaos as flights depart without any luggage

Queues of people are seen at the Virgin and Jetstar departure terminal at Sydney Domestic Airport in Sydney, Thursday, 14 April 2022
Airports around the country experiencing their highest volume of domestic travellers since March 2020 are seeing long queues and unloaded baggage. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Baggage handlers have been so short-staffed that entire flights have departed without luggage as the Easter travel crush peaked at Australian airports, with unions warning the pandemic-depleted aviation industry is now structurally incapable of coping with pre-Covid-like levels of travel demand.

While unloaded baggage and long queues affected travellers across the country on Thursday, unions have claimed that in Brisbane, so few service workers were available that female cleaners were sent in to clean male toilets while travellers were using them, and male cleaners into bathrooms with female patrons.

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