American Airlines made “short notice” cancellations in July, while easyJet changed its schedule when airports announced passenger capacity limits.
The aviation industry has been in disarray since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, a perfect storm of strikes and staff shortages is forcing airlines to back up their battle plans to offset a summer of travel chaos.
About 90,000 jobs have been cut among U.S. airlines as global mobility was halted in 2020, while easyJet and Airbus were among the European companies that lost staff.
Since then, the number of passengers for leisure and business flights has rebounded, surpassing the pre-pandemic numbers. However, those money-saving cuts have turned into shortcomings that wreak havoc.
British Airways on Tuesday suspended short-haul sales from London Heathrow Airport after the airport asked airlines to cut passenger numbers.
So what are the other airlines doing this summer?
Ticket caps
Dutch airline KLM will limit the sale of tickets flying from Amsterdam in September and October after Schiphol Airport places a limit on the number of departing passengers.
The airline “does not foresee that cancellations will be necessary” to respect the limits imposed by the airport, but warns that “fewer seats will be available in the Dutch market than usual”. To see also : Air Travel Consumer Report: Consumer Complaints Drop from April, Still More Than 200 Percent Above Pre-Pandemic Levels | US Department of Transportation.
Qantas hasn’t canceled flights, but has limited sales of its services from Australia to London until mid-September.
Schedule adjustments
German carrier Lufthansa made changes to its schedule earlier this summer and canceled 3,000 flights from Frankfurt and Munich. This may interest you : Strong dollar vs. euro: Time to book trips to Europe?. The first changes were made with the aim of “easing the overall system and offering a stable flight schedule,” according to the airline.
The airline also canceled over 1,000 flights due to a ground crew strike in July. There is currently no capacity limitation on the number of passengers.
Low-cost carrier easyJet made changes to its schedule in June after Amsterdam’s Schiphol and London’s Gatwick Airport announced passenger capacity limits. Since then “operations have normalized”, according to easyJet, and performance is “now at 2019 levels”.
American Airlines made some “short notice” cancellations due to Heathrow’s maximum passenger limit, according to the company, but made no mention of future disruptions when asked for comment by CNBC.
Swiss International canceled some upcoming flights scheduled between July and October in July. The airline said the changes “became necessary due to known constraints in air traffic control in Europe, constraints to ground and airport service providers around the world and also to SWISS”.
Business as usual
Emirates airline Dubai made no changes to its schedules or passenger numbers after refusing to meet Heathrow’s capacity limitation requests in July. See the article : Delta’s Business Travel Optimism.
Austrian Airlines is operating its summer flight schedule “as planned”.
Meanwhile, Irish airline Ryanair says it “has no plans to limit passenger numbers” and that capacity is currently 115% of its pre-Covid numbers.
However, the recovery remains “fragile”, according to chief executive Michael O’Leary.
