As of: 06/21/2022 6:25 p.m
The Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings is canceling dozens of other flights. The reason for this is not only the increasing number of corona infections in the workforce. As a result of the pandemic, there is a general shortage of staff in the industry.
In addition to those previously announced, the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings is canceling dozens of other flights. The airline cites bottlenecks among ground staff at airports as the reason, but also increasing cases of illness among the crews. In the coming days, further flights would have to be taken out of the system at short notice.
The airline is currently struggling with an increasing number of corona diseases among flight personnel: the failures exceed the personnel reserves, a spokesman said. Around 40 flights out of around 500 a day would be canceled today and tomorrow. The two largest departure points Düsseldorf and Cologne-Bonn are particularly affected. “We assume that this will stabilize the situation by the end of June,” said the spokesman.
Like Lufthansa or Easyjet, Eurowings is canceling flights to prevent chaos during the peak travel season. It was recently said that Eurowings would cancel hundreds of flights in Germany and Europe in July. After the massive loss of jobs in the past two years of the pandemic, the increase in personnel has not kept pace with the strong recovery in demand in aviation. This leads to bottlenecks at check-in, security checks and baggage handling. According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, there is currently a shortage of around 2,000 employees in all areas of the aviation industry.
Pilots’ association considers staff shortages to be self-inflicted
The next endurance test is coming up next weekend with the start of the summer holidays in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The head of the pilots’ association Cockpit, Stefan Herth, considers the acute shortage of staff to be self-inflicted. The companies used the pandemic as an excuse to cut jobs and worsen working conditions. Now the industry as a whole has lost its attractiveness for employees. Cockpit called for a concerted action, in which not only politicians and companies but also the trade unions should be involved in order to tackle the problems.
According to the Ministry of Transport, 2000 positions are vacant
In order to find a way out of the staff shortages, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing met with representatives of the industry last week. They are working under high pressure to solve the problems, it said. As a result of the talks, a coordination group is to be set up at state secretary level.
There are certainly opportunities on the part of politicians to support the companies, said the general manager of the Working Group of German Airports (ADV), Ralph Beisel. This applies, among other things, to the recruitment of employees from third countries and the acceleration of the background check for newly hired personnel.
For example, hiring temporary workers from Turkey is being discussed. With this in mind, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said last week that all new employees would have to go through the necessary security checks. The federal government is trying its best to find a solution. “But it won’t be easy.”