A British minister said the travel industry has had months to prepare for the half-term rush and should have had staff in place - as hundreds of flights have been cancelled including some to Mallorca. Lord Parkinson, the arts minister, told Sky News' Kay Burley that the Department for Transport has been working with the travel and aviation industry to ensure they could get people away for half-term and Jubilee weekend breaks.
"We have been on a long pathway back to recovery so that people can enjoy this moment and (companies) should be making sure that people are able to get away on holiday and enjoy it fully," he said.
"We have been, for many months, urging them to make sure they've got enough staff."
There are "lots of opinionated people in the aviation industry", Lord Parkinson said, in reference to some of the airline bosses who have blamed the government for staff shortages resulting in long airport delays and flight cancellations over the past few days."But we have been working with people across the sector to make sure that they are preparing for the reopening of the economy and of travel, after the pandemic abated," he said.
The government has been using "post-Brexit freedoms" to make sure people can be hired more quickly, he said, and the aviation industry has been encouraged to use those freedoms to get more staff in.
2 comments
To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in
Oh, you haven't heard? It's the Magaluf airport that's the problem. Everything is running fine in England. Except of course for flights to Magaluf. And that screws everything up.
It’s about time someone said this… Travel and airports Companies dropped their labour during Covid, go away don’t need you. Easy jet closed many U.K. regional bases in panic to dump costs. Now offer reduced capacity and poor schedules. Certainly to my regional. How can they be surprised when the folk they used to employ, have the temerity to find a better job with permanent employment and sociable hours. The swing cheap labour model is at the moment broken. Which I consider a step forward. There is a shortage of good people to hire in all sectors. 2million have retired during the last 3 years and the young uns, have not been trained or are uninterested in this type of seasonal work. It’s not just the travel sector, that the realisation among those clever people ,paid film star salaries, running business , the Labour market has changed. The same old same old models and practices no longer apply. Labour is now as critical resource as plant and capital.and always was, but excess labour available mitigated that fact Covid a little bit of Brexit and the reality that workers need training, realistic security and development . The days of just get another in are gone for the foreseeable future. The Old models no longer apply evolve business or go under. There’s always another business that gets it right and will drink your beer.