The airport chaos in the UK affected some 20,000 passengers flying to Palma on Tuesday. There were flight delays of up to two hours and cancellations. There were 162 UK flights on Tuesday - arrivals and departures - which led to queues at both check-in and in arrivals and to repercussions for other operations, e.g. coaches to destinations. Tuesday is one of the three main transfer days of the week.
The UK government is pinning the blame on the travel industry for not having sufficiently prepared for the return of high numbers of travellers after the pandemic. Deflecting airline criticisms of the government, Lord Parkinson, the arts minister, told Sky News on Tuesday that the transport ministry 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. We have been urging them for many months to make sure they've got enough staff."
At Son Sant Joan Airport, meanwhile, the start of 'Operation Summer' will, it is hoped, mean that more National Police officers are available for passport control.
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The tories are very quick to blame others for the problems but don't mention the new law which takes 3 months to get airport security clearance which is causing a lot of the staff shortages.
All this because because occasionally 15 flights arrive in Mallorca from the UK in an hour, and there's a queue at passport control. Good job they're adding a few police at PMI. We'd hate to see a collapse of the entire air travel system in Europe.