Due to staff shortages, several European airlines have announced frequency cuts and suspension of in-flight service.
SAS announced the cancellation of around 4,000 peak season flights. Operations will be affected in May, June, July and August. British Airways suspended almost 18,000 flights just as the peak season begins.
TUI said it will suspend in-flight catering on most of its routes. EasyJet will even remove seats from its planes in order to operate with fewer crew members.
SAS will suspend around five percent of its flights.
The press officer of Scandinavian airline SAS, John Eckhoff, announced that of the 75,000 flights the company had originally scheduled for the May-August period, around 4,000 will not be operated.
As reported by E24, Eckhoff pointed out that this situation is due to staff shortages. «Many crewmembers still have to go through their recurrent or through the simulator,» the executive noted. The staff shortage is mainly due to the fact that SAS laid off around 5,000 employees at the outbreak of the pandemic. Of these, some 2,000 have been rehired but are still unable to fly, as they have not met the qualification requirements.
The SAS pilots’ union blamed the company’s management for the problems. «This is a crisis created by management itself,» charged Roger Klokset, the association’s leader, noting that approximately 450 former airline pilots remain unemployed.
Eckhoff was quick to respond. «It’s not just a matter of rehiring employees,» he said. The problem is that «pilots and cabin crew need training, and at the moment there is a severe shortage of instructors. There is also no availability of simulators for training and qualification,» he said.
TUI suspends in-flight service on some flights
TUI told its customers that «all short-haul flights, and some long-haul flights, may take off without in-flight catering service». According to the airline, the problem lies in the fact that its supplier is facing staff shortages and advised customers to bring their own food and drink on flights.
According to the Anglo-German company, «due to staff shortages at our catering provider, some in-flight services may be suspended in the coming days. This disruption will not affect our flights to Aruba, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Orlando, and St. Lucia.»
EasyJet to remove seats from its aircraft to fly with fewer crew members
EasyJet began removing seats from some of its planes to reduce the number of cabin crew needed to operate. In an internal memo to which The Daily Telegraph obtained access, the airline said it plans to remove six seats from sixty of its Airbus A319s.
By reducing the number of seats from 156 to 150, the number of cabin crew required by law to operate the flight decreases from four to three, as laws mandate that for every fifty seats there must be one cabin crew member on board, regardless of the number of passengers.
The airline maintains that it plans to carry the same number of passengers this year as before the pandemic and that eliminating these seats would not impact that goal. «This is an effective way to operate our fleet,» said a company spokesman.
British Airways suspends 16,000 flights
The U.K. flag carrier announced the cancellation of about 10% of its operations during the spring and summer. CEO Sean Doyle indicated that approximately 8,000 round-trip flights are planned to be cut «over the next few months.»
The executive blamed staff shortages for these operational constraints and indicated that the company is «working» to address them as soon as possible. He also pledged that all affected passengers will be re-accommodated on other flights.
The statements came during the publication of the airline’s first-quarter financial results, in which the airline reported a loss of 916 million euros.
