Sue Davies, head of consumer rights in the Who? Consumer Group, told the Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) that there were serious, historic failures on the issue of passenger rights compliance and compensation. and that the industry regulator had proved useless to hold them accountable. He was speaking as the committee held a hearing on the recent period of cancellations during half-time – many of them in a very short time – as airlines and airports were facing staff shortages. There were long queues at airports and a lot of commotion, with thousands of passengers learning by text message that their flight would not leave after the scheduled take-off time. Ms Davies said of the shutdown: “Airlines and the government have encouraged people to travel again and we believe they have simply underestimated capacity issues and shortages in both airlines and airport services, including baggage handlers.” He also accused the airlines of selling tickets when “they do not know for sure that these flights will actually be able to operate”. Both airlines and airports have blamed staff shortages – and the government – but have been widely accused of making excessive customer bookings and shooting themselves in the legs. British Airways and easyJet, for example, fired staff despite taxpayer support as the COVID pandemic broke out in 2020 – forcing international travel to stop as a lockdown was imposed. The industry as a whole has seen tens of thousands of workers leave as flights have stalled and airports have looked like ghost towns. Since then, the air force has blamed ministers for failing to communicate about opening skies for recruitment assistance and for difficulties for new staff in securing critical security clearances. Karen Dee, CEO of the Airport Operators Association, told the committee she could not guarantee the problems would be resolved in time for the summer holidays. Oliver Richardson, National Aviation Officer at Unite, told the committee the industry was quick to lay off people, and many experienced executives had taken advantage of the offer to leave during the public health emergency as the packages were more attractive. Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 1:15 “We will think twice about traveling again” Lisa Tremble, BA’s director of corporate affairs, defended her decision to lay off more than 10,000 workers on the grounds that she lost εκατο 20 million a day in the spring of 2020, saying the airline had acted in a “more responsible way”. in time. He said BA was currently looking for 6,000 more employees and did not confirm when asked if it was responsible for its own staffing difficulties. Representatives of TUI and easyJet also apologized to customers for the outage, but rejected suggestions from consumer groups that compensation policies covering delays and cancellations were opaque and cumbersome. Mrs. Davies from which? said the Civil Aviation Authority had proved reluctant to police the industry’s obligations. He told MPs: “We still see airlines showing up to book flights when they do not know for sure that these flights will actually be able to operate. “We have seen people being given information in a very short time and they have not actually been given the right information about their rights. “We think there are obviously some really specific issues right now in this case, but this is just a symptom of some of the issues we’ve seen in the industry for a long time. “There is simply a blatant violation of consumer rights and a failure to put the interests of passengers first.” Earlier, committee chairman Darren Jones expressed frustration with the failure of the British Airways chief executive to testify at Tuesday’s meeting. He said it was “unfortunate” that Sean Doyle “could not find 45 minutes” to answer questions from lawmakers, but added that he had agreed to appear before the committee later this month.
