In a joint letter to airline executives, the Department of Transportation and the CAA asked air carriers to reconsider their summer routes to ensure they were “deliverable”. Flights that are not possible should be canceled as soon as possible. Rania Leontaridis, head of aviation at DfT, and Richard Moriarty, CAA chief executive, have warned of “inevitable cancellations” in the coming weeks. In the letter to the aviation bosses, they added: “Your plans should be based on the resources you and your contractors expect to have available and should be resilient to the unplanned and unavoidable business challenges you will face. “While cancellations at any time are a sad inconvenience for passengers, we believe that cancellations as soon as possible to offer a more stable schedule are better for consumers than late cancellation notice per day.” The warning comes after thousands of flights were canceled in recent weeks at UK airports due to staff shortages, causing distress to British holidaymakers. Ms Leontaridis and Mr Moriarty told airlines to “take all possible steps to prepare and manage passenger demand” to “avoid the unacceptable scenes we have seen recently”. They also said that when there are “inevitable cancellations [and] delays’, passengers must be ‘notified promptly, clearly and empathetically’. Earlier this week, The Telegraph revealed that Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was resisting urgent action to allow the influx of foreign workers to alleviate the airport staffing crisis.
