Air travel chaos begins to ease but is there more trouble on the horizon?

As the pandemic entered its third summer, airline bookings roared back as consumers planned long-awaited trips after years of staying put — but the industry was not ready. Air travel on both sides of the Atlantic has been in disarray this summer. From the start of May to mid-August, a quarter of flights into, out of, or within the US, UK and Europe were disrupted — delayed or cancelled — as airlines struggled to scale up operations to meet soaring demand, while labour shortages ranged from pilots to cabin crew, ground staff and air traffic controllers. The situation has finally begun to improve in the UK and Europe, after busy airports imposed unprecedented caps on passenger numbers and airlines slashed their summer schedules. An industry-wide hiring drive also brought in more staff. In the first half of August, 29 per cent of flights into, out of, or within the UK were delayed or cancelled, down from about 35 per cent in June and July, according to a Financial Times analysis of data from flight tracker FlightAware. A quarter of the 480,000 flights into, out of, or within Europe scheduled for the first 17 days of August were disrupted, down from 29% for July. “We obviously have different challenges in different markets, but overall the UK is by far the worst,” said Warwick Brady, chief executive of Swissport, one of the world’s largest ground handling companies. Brady pointed to factors including travel restrictions and difficulties hiring workers following Brexit. Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, this week extended an unprecedented cap on passenger numbers until the end of October to make sure its operations can cope, blaming staff shortages at ground handling companies employed by airlines. In the US, a blame game has played out between airlines and the federal government.<br/>