NRW holiday start
Hopelessly overcrowded airports in Cologne and Düsseldorf – and then the baggage system also fails
Long queues formed at Düsseldorf Airport on the first holiday weekend
At the start of the summer holidays in North Rhine-Westphalia, there is chaos at the airports. Travelers report hours of queues, missed and canceled flights. Suitcases will also remain in Düsseldorf today.
North Rhine-Westphalia starts the summer holidays and it happens as feared: chaos reigns at the airports on the first weekend of the holidays. The large rush of passengers meets thinned staff. The result: long queues, missed and canceled flights, problems with baggage handling.
At Cologne/Bonn Airport, passengers sometimes had to queue for more than three hours for the security check on Friday, reports the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. Pictures show queues in the airport building that are hundreds of meters long. The airport was again overloaded on Saturday. At the security checkpoints there are “waiting times of 60 to 90 minutes,” said an airport spokesman for the DPA.
On Twitter, travelers also report very long queues in front of the check-in counters, making it difficult for many to reach the gate in time. The reason for the queues at the security check is sickness-related staff shortages “in the three-digit range,” said the airport. “You can’t compensate for that anymore.” From Friday to Sunday alone, Cologne/Bonn Airport is expecting 115,000 passengers.
Malfunction of the baggage system
At Düsseldorf Airport, the queues at the security check were apparently a little shorter. The federal police spoke of a waiting time of only 10 to 15 minutes on Saturday afternoon, and they were very satisfied with that. At times, however, there were very long queues in front of the check-in counters.
In addition, a malfunction in the baggage handling system at the largest airport in the federal state caused additional chaos. “Due to an IT malfunction in the baggage handling system, baggage may be left behind in DUS today,” the airport said on Saturday afternoon. The suitcases would be forwarded as soon as possible.
Some of the airlines are reacting to the staff overload with short-term flight cancellations. Nine flights were canceled at Düsseldorf Airport by noon on Saturday, including eight from Eurowings and one from Lufthansa. At least six flights from Eurowings, Lufthansa and Pegasus were canceled in Cologne/Bonn on Saturday. The first flight cancellations are already certain for Sunday.
Problems remain all summer
Short-term corona-related absences from illness are just one reason for the current misery. In addition, the workforce has been fundamentally reduced in the past two years of the pandemic and can now no longer be increased again so quickly (you can read the background to this in the star– cover story).
Lufthansa does not expect flight operations to normalize until next year. “Unfortunately, we will hardly be able to realistically achieve a short-term improvement now in the summer,” said board member Detlef Kayser of the “Welt”.
Sources: DPA / Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger / Generalanzeiger / RP Online / Cologne/Bonn Airport / Düsseldorf Airport