Minister was warned staff crisis would lead to ‘inevitable’ travel chaos, says aviation union

theguardian.com:

The aviation minister was warned at the start of the year that the widespread flight chaos witnessed last week was “inevitable” and government intervention was urgently required to prevent such disruption, union sources say.

During a telephone call with aviation unions in late January, Robert Courts was told that the industry wouldn’t be able to cope with high demand unless it received help to offset chronic staff shortages.

Those predictions were played out in sometimes farcical scenes last week, with hundreds of flights cancelled during one of the busiest weeks of the year alongside day-long delays and massive queues snaking out of terminal buildings.

Sources with knowledge of the call with Courts say that despite concerns being raised about a serious lack of staff after airlines, airports and ground handlers sacked tens of thousands of employees in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic, the government did not offer a solution.

“The minister was directly warned this was inevitable. They have to accept some responsibility,” said a union source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In turn, transport secretary Grant Shapps last week directly blamed some of the worst affected airlines, warning that the strain on the industry did not “excuse poor planning and overbooking flights that they cannot service”.

With the half-term holiday and jubilee weekend coming to an end, there were signs yesterday that the worst of the disruption was starting to ease.

At Stansted airport in Essex – a hub for easyJet and TUI Airways, which together cancelled dozens of flights last week, some at short notice – staff said the situation was getting back to normal. Passengers landing there on Saturday morning, however, still described shock at the sheer