Divided European aviation sector seeks cure to travel chaos

European airlines and airports, reeling from delays that caused widespread disruption as demand roared back after COVID-19, are counting the cost of efforts to avoid a repeat next summer. Industry leaders meeting at the headquarters of air traffic control agency Eurocontrol sparred on Wednesday over who was to blame for the chaos that upset passengers and politicians. “We found ourselves more in the news than we would have wished over the summer,” Olivier Jankovec, director general of airports association ACI Europe, told a Eurocontrol conference. Labour or parts shortages and strikes led to cancellations of hundreds of flights, prompting some airports to introduce capacity curbs and exposing slim margins for error. “We somehow survived the summer but it was not great and it should not be happening again. We have to put appropriate resources in the system to deal with the challenges,” Wizz Air CE Jozsef Varadi said. For the budget carrier, that may mean unusually recruiting more people than it needs for the time being. “We are redesigning the operating model to make sure that we build ... more slack in the system so we’re going to be losing some efficiency,” Varadi said. “I’m not optimising for today, but optimising for demands to make sure that we remain as low-cost as possible.” Airports too are increasingly upping pay or handing out recruitment bonuses to hire back workers laid off during the pandemic. Many defected to new-economy jobs like ride-sharing.<br/>