Analysis: Europe's summer of discontent reveals travel sector labour crisis

Altex Industries

20/06/2022 08:43

(Adds easyJet cutting more flights)
    By Toby Sterling, Caroline Pailliez and Tim Hepher
    AMSTERDAM/PARIS/DOHA, June 20 (Reuters) - After 21 years as
a service agent at Air France  AIRF.PA , Karim Djeffal left his
job during the COVID-19 pandemic to start his own job-coaching
consultancy.
    "If this doesn't work out, I won't be going back to the
aviation sector," says the 41-year-old bluntly. "Some shifts
started at 4 a.m. and others ended at midnight. It could be
exhausting."
    Djeffal offers a taste of what airports and airlines across
Europe are up against as they race to hire thousands to cope
with resurgent demand, dubbed "revenge travel" as people seek to
make up for vacations lost during the pandemic.
    Airports in Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands have
tried offering perks including pay rises and bonuses for workers
who refer a friend.
    Leading operators have already flagged thousands of openings
across Europe. But the industry says European aviation as a
whole has lost 600,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2Y02GY
    Yet the hiring blitz can’t come fast enough to erase the
risk of cancelled flights and long waits for travellers even
beyond the summer peak, analysts and industry officials say. 
    The summer when air travel was supposed to return to normal
after a two-year pandemic vacuum is in danger of becoming the
summer when the high-volume, low-cost air travel model broke
down - at least in Europe's sprawling integrated market.
    Labour shortages and strikes have already caused disruption
in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Frankfurt this spring. 
    Airlines such as low-cost giant easyJet  EZJ.L  are
cancelling hundreds of summer flights and new strikes are
brewing in Belgium, Spain, France and Scandinavia. 
    On Monday the British carrier said it was cutting even more
services in the busy summer period to help manage problems
including ground staff shortages and flight caps at London
Gatwick and Amsterdam.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2Y70ZV
    As industry leaders head to a summit in Qatar this week, a
major theme will be who bears responsibility for the chaos
between airlines, airports and governments.
    "There is a lot of mud-slinging, but every side is at fault
in not coping with the resurgence of demand," said James
Halstead, managing partner at consultancy Aviation Strategy.
    The aviation industry says it has lost 2.3 million jobs
globally during the pandemic, with ground-handling and security
hardest hit, according to the Air Transport Action Group, which
represents the industry.
    Many workers are slow to return, lured by the 'gig' economy
or opting to retire early.
    "They clearly have alternatives now and can switch jobs,"
said senior ING economist Rico Luman.
    While he expects travel pressure will ease after the summer,
he says shortages may persist as older workers stay away and,
critically, there are fewer younger workers willing to replace
them.
    "Even if there is a recession, the labour market will remain
tight at least this year," he said.
    
    LOW MORALE
    A major factor slowing hiring is the time it takes for new
workers to get security clearance - in France, up to five months
for the most sensitive jobs, according to the CFDT union.
    Marie Marivel, 56, works as a security operator screening
luggage at CDG for around 1,800 euros a month post-tax.
    She says shortages have led to staff being overworked.
Stranded passengers have been turning aggressive. Morale is low.
    "We have young people who come and leave again after a day,"
she says. "They tell us we're earning cashiers' wages for a job
with so much responsibility."
    After much disruption in May, the situation in France is
stabilising, said Anne Rigail, chief executive of the French arm
of Air France-KLM  AIRF.PA .
    Even so, Paris's Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, where
one union has called a strike on July 2, still need to fill a
total of 4,000 vacancies, according to the operator. 
    And in the Netherlands, where unemployment is much lower at
3.3%, unfilled vacancies are at record highs and KLM's Schiphol
hub has seen hundreds of cancelled flights and long queues.
    Schiphol has now given a summer bonus of 5.25 euros per hour
to 15,000 workers in security, baggage handling, transportation
and cleaning - a 50% increase for those on minimum wage.
    "That's of course huge, but it still isn't enough," said
Joost van Doesburg of union FNV. 
    "Let's be honest, the last six weeks have not really been an
advertisement for coming to work at the airport."
    Schiphol and London's Gatwick last week unveiled plans to
cap capacity during the summer, forcing more cancellations as
airlines, airports and politicians bicker over the crisis.
    
          
    BLAME GAME
    Luis Felipe de Oliveira, head of global airports association
ACI, told Reuters airports are being unfairly blamed and
airlines should work harder to address queues and rising costs.
    Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport
Association, the global airline industry group meeting in Qatar,
has dismissed talk of a breakdown in air travel as "hysteria". 
    Walsh in turn blames part of the disruption on the actions
of "idiot politicians" in places like Britain where frequent
changes in COVID policy discouraged hiring.
    The June 19-21 IATA meeting is expected to signal relative
optimism about growth, tempered by concerns over inflation.
    Such gatherings have for years portrayed the industry as the
positive face of globalisation, connecting people and goods at
ever more competitive fares.
    But the European labour crisis has exposed its vulnerability
to a fragile labour force, with the resulting rise in costs
likely to push fares higher and add pressure for restructuring.
    In Germany for example, employers say many ground workers
have joined online retailers such as Amazon  AMZN.O .
    "It's more comfortable packing a hair dryer or a computer in
a box than heaving a 50-pound suitcase crawling into the
fuselage of an airplane", said Thomas Richter, chief of the
German ground-handling employers' association ABL.
    Analysts say the labour squeeze may raise costs beyond the
summer but it is too early to tell whether the industry must
step back from the pre-pandemic model of ever-rising volumes and
cost-cutting, which generated new routes and kept fares low.
    For some departing employees, however, Europe's torrid
summer signals a wake-up call for passengers and bosses alike.
    "I personally think the very cheap flying...I just don't
know how they can really keep up with that," said a former
British Airways cabin crew member, 58, who has taken redundancy.

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 (Reporting by Toby Sterling, Caroline Pailliez, Farouq
Suleiman, Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert,
Klaus Lauer; Writing by Toby Sterling, Tim Hepher; Editing by
Elaine Hardcastle)
 ((toby.sterling@thomsonreuters.com;))