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In the past few days, there have been many flight cancellations, delays and long queues when boarding passengers at British airports, which has caused great inconvenience not only in British air traffic but also in many European countries: In some cases, queues were so long that the passengers Waiting for controls had to wait outside the airport. The main reasons that have caused this situation include the public holidays established to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and airline staff shortages.
On June 2 alone, British Airways and EasyJet, two of the UK’s main airlines, canceled around 150 flights from the UK, and hundreds more flights are expected to be canceled or delayed in the coming days. The worst situations were recorded at Bristol, Manchester and Gatwick (London) airports: in many cases passengers were notified of flight cancellations an hour after boarding, in other cases there were waiting times of several hours before departure.
The reasons are different, and their simultaneity created an unexpected situation of chaos. Underlying all the problems was the Platinum Jubilee, or celebration of the 70th anniversary of the reign of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. To mark the anniversary, two national bank holidays – called Bank Holidays in English – were introduced on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June, which together with the weekend gave British citizens the opportunity to take a long holiday break.
There have also been several delays and cancellations at the airports in Ireland, which is not part of the UK, which is obviously not celebrating its platinum anniversary but is a public holiday on Monday 6th June. But there were also problems at several European airports, such as that of Brussels, where the arrival of thousands of British tourists collectively led to long queues in the transit areas for citizens from countries outside the European Union: unlike European citizens, British citizens actually have to present documents to enter a Union country, which has caused significant delays in controls.
.@ Brussels Airport why the crazy queues at passport control? Chaos reigns here. No information and people skipping lines like crazy! And just as I managed to escape @DublinAirport with very little effort #brussels airport pic.twitter.com/V1SMpowC9e
– Alison Comyn (@alisoncomyn) May 30, 2022
There were also major problems with queues, delays and canceled flights at Amsterdam and Palma de Mallorca airports.
Many people had indeed decided in recent months to organize a holiday for the bridge and fly abroad by plane this weekend, but airlines have proved completely unprepared to manage such a large number of bookings.
Dublin Airport at 4.30am this morning. I have to say the staff were amazing, 45 minutes from boarding the outside queue to getting through security! #DublinAirport pic.twitter.com/bhixtsSrGl
– David Honeyford MLA (@dhoneyford) June 3, 2022
Two years of pandemic, in which air traffic was effectively suspended for many months for tourism reasons, had brought the airlines into a deep economic crisis: Many companies had cut thousands of jobs, especially ground staff.
British airlines in particular had hoped that the long Platinum Jubilee Bridge would revitalize tourism. They had sold far more tickets than actual seats available in recent months (a common practice used by airlines called overbooking to get the most out of every single flight) and they had hoped the employment situation would improve in the meantime and that succeeded in increasing the staff at the airports.
However, this did not happen, also because of delays in the checks that the British Civil Aviation Authority had to carry out on applicants at the airport. According to the companies, the deadlines for accepting applications would be much longer than in the past and this would have prevented the Platinum Jubilee Bridge from being staffed in a timely manner.
The British government responded that thanks to a change introduced in April to speed up the process, there was still time for the applications to be accepted and that the companies were solely to blame for the cancellations and delays. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps lashed out at the airlines, accusing them of selling more tickets than they had “despite government warnings” and warning them that a situation like the last few days should not happen again over the summer.
– Also read: The photos of the platinum anniversary