You receive your new passport just in time, despite weeks of Home Office delays. You arrive at the airport heroically early, so as not to tempt the wrath of the M25 or Piccadilly line. You queue from outside the terminal just to check in, somehow make it past security and onto the plane as you contemplate spending £4.99 on a mini tub of Pringles. You’ve made it. Until, that is, the pilot announces: your flight has been cancelled.
The airline industry was flattened by Covid-19, we know that. A sector that funnels hoards of people into a metal tube only to sit cheek by jowl for several hours before depositing them in a different jurisdiction was never likely to fare well in a pandemic.
As borders shut and lockdowns bit, the airlines cancelled the vast majority of flights and laid off tens of thousands of employees, despite the existence of the furlough scheme, designed to prevent mass layoffs.
But that was last year, filled with red lists, testing requirements and border restrictions. Now, it’s all about staffing. From a standing start, airlines and airports are scrambling to hire. Problem is, not only are they competing with a whole host of other sectors for labour, they face the additional hurdle of vetting.
These are security checks for anyone working ‘airside’, both pilots and cabin crew but also ground staff, and they can take several months. Applicants have to provide five years’ worth of employment details (so if you’ve had a lot of jobs recently, say because of a pandemic, it all takes longer). They also require a criminal records check and counter-terrorism clearance.
The airlines are blaming the Government, pointing to significant delays.
Ministers in turn accuse the airlines of a lack of foresight. Lord Parkinson, an arts minister, told Sky News today that the Government had “been saying to the industry for quite some time they should have been prepared for this.”
So who is right? And where are the staff? Brexit is, as ever, a complicating factor. UK airlines have historically advertised directly in the EU as well as at home. But the end of freedom of movement means that it is both harder to recruit and less appealing for prospective employees.
The sector could certainly give paying people more a go. It is hardly surprising that lugging other people’s suitcases around all day for £10 an hour is not an easy sell. But aviation is not an industry famous for high wages or fat profit margins.
Ultimately, the Great Resignation was never about people deciding not to work anymore. We all have to eat. But many people have reasonably concluded that there are easier ways to earn a living than being shouted at by the Great British public in their shops, restaurants or indeed airports.
In the comment pages, Professor Kevin Fenton, Public Health Regional Director for London, says stigma is our enemy in the fight against monkeypox. While Nimco Ali warns that east Africa is gripped by famine, but nobody really seems to care.
And finally, well, this was inevitable. Watch National treasure, Kay Burley, discover that a minister can’t convert imperial measurements despite Downing Street claiming that the system is “universally understood.” Next, an Urgent Question on how to convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit?
