By Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour member
Are you expecting a holiday abroad this year? Or will you spend days in an airport terminal? Panorama this week examined the reasons for the travel chaos at Britain’s major airports, Rachel Burden interviewing a number of experts and airport bosses about the chaos and the all-too-frequent last minute cancellations of flights.
So far, this year alone, there have been over 17,000 cancellations involving up to three million people. Looking at one example among tens of thousands, Burden interviewed a family from Manchester who were booked to travel from Gatwick, but on arrival, discovered that their flight had been cancelled. Cutting a long story short, they ended up travelling with another operator, three days later at twice the cost!
The principal cause of the crisis in air travel has been a staff shortage. Over 30,000 were laid off during the pandemic and many, angry at the way they were treated, as well as the low pay, have decided not to return. Burden interviewed a man who was formally employed in airport security, who now works as a taxi-driver and prefers it because he sees more of his family.
As one expert on air-travel told the programme, airports operate with complex webs of contractors, with every separate service and function shelved out to some company or other. It only takes a failure in one particular activity to cascade across the rest and cause flight delays and cancellations.
A wheelchair-bound journalist was left on a plane for over an hour and a half last week, after all the other passengers had disembarked. The special assistance unit failed to arrive – it was not that the workers were not available and willing to assist, but they hadn’t been informed. In the end, the stewards had to take her off the plane, but it caused a delay in the departure on the next flight.
Another factor that is blindingly obvious has been the effects of Brexit, although the newspapers and the Tory government will never use the ‘B’ word, because it would emphasise what a shambles of a policy it was. Easyjet and Ryanair have said that many potential applicants have been turned away because of visa restrictions.
Rachel Burden interviewed the boss of Liverpool City Airport, who supported this explanation, because it quite obviously reduces the pool of staff available. She also interviewed Robert Courts, the Tory Aviation Minister, who said that many European Airports were experiencing similar problems and Brexit had nothing to do with the current chaos.
Italian airports mostly publicly-owned
But on meeting up with the boss of Milan Airport, Burden found that they had nothing like the same problems, largely because Italian airports are predominantly publicly-owned. The Italian Government gave a grant during the pandemic to ensure that no staff were made redundant. In fact, they used some of the grant to introduce new technologies in airport security and passengers are no longer required to discard plastic bottles and take computers out of hand-held luggage at security points.
Robert Courts argument was that different countries had different policies and he was looking after the interests of British tax-payers. What he didn’t say was that at one time, airports in the UK were also publicly-owned. Thatcher’s privatisation mania put paid to that. Both the current hopefuls for Tory leadership have claimed admiration for Thatcherism. I say, ‘buyers beware’.
Around £8 billion was given to the aviation Industry during the pandemic, mainly in the form of loans. Burden makes the point that the performances of the airlines differed; for example British Airways cancelling more flights than Virgin.
Burden interviewed the go-to aviation expert, Simon Calder. He said that the problem of late cancellations was due to slots being given to airlines by the airports, regardless of whether or not they are used, instead of being given to other airlines. He noted that this policy would result in higher fares because the overall number of flights will fall.
He also made the point that only 40% of passengers actually claim compensation for delays and cancellations and suggested that if everyone who was liable for compensation actually claimed, it would force the airlines to improve their performance. In my opinion, Labour should renationalise the airports and British Airways, which was also once a state-owned carrier. It should form a part of a socialist Integrated transport system that includes air, train and bus services.
This programme was devoted to the current problems experienced mainly by holidaymakers and those who might need to travel by air because of work, or in some cases, family emergencies. But another issue is that aviation fuel is a significant emitter of carbon dioxide. Public ownership and control would enable alternative fuels to be developed because private operators are only driven by profitability rather than the public good.
The Panorama programme is available on BBC i-player, here. [Pictures from the BBC programme]
