The boss of one of Britain’s biggest airports says staffing levels may not fully recover until the autumn, and has predicted a busy summer ahead.
Passengers have faced long delays at airports recently and are being warned to prepare for a busy week ahead with families jetting off for half term and the jubilee bank holiday.
Nick Barton, the Chief Executive of Birmingham Airport, says the queues have been caused by a delay in recruiting, training and getting security clearance for enough staff to deal with the surge in demand for foreign travel seen since restrictions were lifted in March.
“In simple terms the airport was operating at about a third of what it used to do and had been for two years so we lost half of our staff,” Mr Barton told Sky News.
“The demand for, and the appetite for, aviation was switched on in February and March, and came back almost immediately and we then had to race and catch up.
“For that simple reason the queueing and the service levels that we’re used to giving simply couldn’t be met.”
Mr Barton says they only got “about two or three days’ notice” of all travel restrictions being removed on 18 March.
During the pandemic 43% of Birmingham Airport’s employees were made redundant.
They began trying to recruit again in November, but struggled due to the emergence of the Omicron variant and fears of another lockdown.
“In December and January we couldn’t get people to join us because at the time we were pretty much closed,” Mr Barton says.
“We were operating at less than 30%, and we couldn’t really offer a career. So, who was going to join us?
“We were able to get a few people on board but nothing like the numbers we needed. It was only in February it changed.”
He says they are still “about 15% short of where we need to be”, due to security clearance and training of new staff taking around 10-12 weeks.
“We…
Source : skynews
