Cancellation and delays

[Saintsman]

There are lots of cancellations and delays in the UK at the moment, but what is it like elsewhere around the world?

The UK press are making it out to be a home issue, but I have heard of similar events elsewhere (Holland/ Ireland and France?).

Obviously if flights are cancelled in the UK, then there must be cancellations elsewhere, but is it all our fault or are external factors part of the issue?


As an aside, I flew EasyJet last week without any problem and when I got back to Gatwick, was on the motorway within half an hour of landing. Lucky I guess.

[PAXboy]

I have no idea as, happily, not travelling at the moment. Some famiy heading to MAD on Saturday. As they are on BA, they hope that Iberia will be on standby.

As usual a govt minister has responded to the age old tabloid pressure to be seen 'doing something'.
Grant Shapps, criticised travel firms, saying they had “seriously oversold flights and holidays relative to their capacity to deliver”.

Shapps, in a statement issued late on Tuesday, said he had called for a meeting with airports, airlines and ground handlers to “find out what’s gone wrong and how they are planning to end the current run of cancellations and delays”.

Shapps added: “This must not happen again and all efforts should be directed at there being no repeat of this over the summer.”

As the roots of these delays are tied up with two years of Pandemic and many years of airline and airport management and the fabulous wages that are paid ... it makes matters a little difficult. Could the carriers selling seats to a public keen to return to normal life by the govt, have known what was going to happen 3 or 6 months down the line?

I am not trying to let them off the hook. I have also had the problem of finding that a car hire company had no cars in the garage, with families standing around demanding to get their pre-payments back..

Saw this Tweet today:
@closefrank
The jubilee baton relay - is that the one where the Transport Minister passes the buck to the airlines, who blame the lack of check in staff, who blame airport management, who blame the government?

[jolihokistix]

Offspring just arrived from Ibiza, Gatwick North, 3:00 am Thursday. No gates available. Much taxiing. Terminal full of unhappy people sleeping on floor. Baggage chaos. Serious lack of available taxis.

[S.o.S.]

BA continue to advertise strongly through emails, at least three in the last week. I suppose that they hope to keep people interested with 'sales' to offset the bad press.

[FUMR]

Amsterdam and Brussels had their fair share of delays (AMS more than BRU) mainly due to lack of available personnel. That was however earlier than in the UK because their half term was earlier.

[WHBM]

Grant Shapps, criticised travel firms, saying they had “seriously oversold flights and holidays relative to their capacity to deliver”.
Unfortunately for those who like to deride government ministers (of any party) announcements, this is true.

Nobody forced carriers to schedule services beyond their resources. It seems there has been a significant disconnect at SOME (not all) carriers between the sales/commercial side and the operational capability - the latter including recruitment/replacement of staff who had been let go, though at some carriers more than others.

Schedule what you can deliver. When you are sold out, you are sold out ...

[davidjohnson6]

Based on recent press in the UK, there seems to be a decrease in the public's overall confidence in some specific airports and airlines.
If you fly a particular airline at least a few times per year, and you can buy a ticket for which change of date+route is available at moderate cost.... what is to stop you from buying in advance multiple tickets for a route (i.e. on different flights on the same day), waiting to see what gets cancelled between purchase date and flight date, paying the modest change fee if necessary to defer any tickets you can't use and thus having a much higher certainty of reaching your destination ?

It seems to me as if the option on being able to change a ticket has suddenly become a lot more valuable... with the consequence that (based on historical no-show data) an airline that thought the flight was fully booked 24 hours in advance, will suddenly find itself with a lot of empty seats 3 hours before departure time

[longer ron]

Both our daughters have flown very recently with Squezy Jet - no problems - presumably some routes/airports worse than others ?

[Alanwsg]

KLM weren't flying anyone from elsewhere in Europe into Amsterdam yesterday ...

https://news.klm.com/update-on-klm-operations-on-whit-monday-weekend

[PAXboy]

Family went out through LHR T5 yesterday, going to MAD. They said the terminal was very busy but got through OK and flight ran to schedule.