The delays in air traffic are back again – economy

It has gotten late, the children are tired, the parents are a little stressed, but now the end will soon be in sight. Two hours of flight time from Catania to Frankfurt, one hour delay, now pick up the suitcases and then go home. But the baggage carousel doesn’t want to move. Instead, a new piece of information lights up on the display panel: Baggage claim is delayed.

Many who have started to travel by plane again in these weeks have recently had these or similar déjà vu experiences. As soon as the many travel restrictions have been lifted, at least in Europe and now also in the North Atlantic, the old problems come back. Especially at peak times, it seems to be hooked at every nook and cranny, although the number of passengers is still a long way from reaching the level of 2019. In Berlin, Lufthansa recommended its guests to be at the airport four hours before departure – better safe than sorry. At the Frankfurt hub: queues, waiting times and delays. Mission plans for jumbled planes, suitcases that can no longer keep up, passengers who miss their connecting flights.

“On average, we have very good punctuality values ​​compared to 2019. But at peak times, the infrastructure of the airports with their current staffing capacity reaches its limits,” says Detlef Kayser. On the Lufthansa Executive Board, Kayser is responsible for infrastructure and fleet strategy, including relationships with airports and air traffic control.

Many baggage loaders or bus drivers have looked for other jobs

Ground workers are currently the bottleneck. They handle the aircraft, load the baggage, refuel the machines or drive the passengers in buses to the sometimes distant parking positions of the machines on the apron. In the worst of the pandemic, most of them were on short-time work. But in view of the already often low salaries, many former baggage handlers or bus drivers have looked for other jobs – especially since there is a sometimes considerable shortage of workers in other industries. At the same time, airlines like Lufthansa have sharply focused their flight schedules: at peak times they now handle almost as many flights as they did before the crisis, but then almost nothing is going on for hours.

This is a planning nightmare for airports. If they keep enough staff to handle the tips, the costs cannot be justified. If you orient yourself on the average traffic, you will have too few people at peak times. According to Stefan Schulte, head of the airport operator Fraport, 75 percent of the luggage loaders were available in Frankfurt in August, but at the peak up to 90 percent of the flights took place as before Corona. Fraport has been hiring again since July, but it is often difficult to find people quickly, especially since they have to pass a special security check to work at an airport. Far from all of them get through in the end.

The pandemic also makes things more complicated. Many who previously checked in online and went straight to the gate now have to present proof of vaccination or test results at the counter. And, according to Schulte, many passengers simply forgot how some things work at an airport because of the long break from travel. “It’s a big challenge, but we’ll manage it,” said the Fraport boss. Especially when the flight plans are no longer so extremely focused on specific times.

There is a lot of improvisation behind the scenes

Lufthansa board member Kayser criticizes, however, that some airports have “not yet adequately adjusted to the changed flight plans and the more complicated processes”. Lufthansa had clearly communicated with the airports at many meetings well in advance of how it wanted to organize the ramp-up in summer and autumn 2021. The effort involved in handling was therefore predictable and plannable. In Frankfurt there are around 200 to 300 people at peak times. Lufthansa suggested using students or mini-jobbers instead of just looking to find new full-time employees.

The airlines and customers continue to have to pay for it. There are currently almost no flight cancellations, but a lot of improvisation behind the scenes. Lufthansa normally has a punctuality rate of a good 80 percent – that is the proportion of aircraft that leave the parking position as planned or up to 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time. At peak times, however, the values ​​drop back to 60 to 70 percent because Lufthansa usually waits for the guests and luggage instead of rebooking them and leaving them there.

This now has consequences for Frankfurt. Since the beginning of 2020 Lufthansa had run practically the entire long-haul route through its largest hub. Now four new AirbusA350-Long-haul jets that will be delivered in 2022 but will be stationed in Munich.

For the airlines, the fees will rise dramatically in the next few years

But the Rhein / Main Airport is not the only problem. Berlin, for example, has too few people. In addition, the airport company has still closed Terminal 2 at BER for cost reasons, which means that Terminal 1 is often cramped. “You can already feel the limitation of the infrastructure again, although we are still a long way from the passenger numbers of 2019,” says Kayser. “Having the security controls so close to the check-in counters is inconvenient.” The Lufthansa Executive Board believes that permanent renovations in the terminal cannot be avoided.

Before the corona pandemic, air traffic control had come to and over its limits due to the sheer volume of flights to be controlled. The control center in Karlsruhe in particular was overloaded. In the meantime, Bremen is more of a neuralgic point. “We are not the limiting factor after the Corona crisis,” emphasizes Arndt Schoenemann, the new head of German Air Traffic Control (DFS). In October, the number of flight movements was 68.5 percent of the pre-crisis level, and could increase to 88 percent by the end of 2022.

From the point of view of DFS customers, the problem is currently a completely different one. Air traffic control “has the right to transfer the fee shortfall in 2020 over the next few years,” said Kayser. “The airlines will be burdened with massive increases in fees in the coming years.” Even in 2020, DFS did not send a single pilot on short-time work in order to keep the system ready at full capacity at the request of the federal government. At the same time, however, unlike the airports, DFS did not receive any subsidies for maintaining part of the critical infrastructure.

From Kayser’s point of view, an absurdity: “We have to pay retrospectively for a service that we did not use in the pandemic.” At Lufthansa, the expected increases of between 90 and 110 percent annually amount to a three-digit million amount. She herself expects a small profit again at most in 2022.

By the way, the baggage carousel in Frankfurt started running at some point and carried the suitcases up from the airport basement. The extra half an hour didn’t arrive.