For many people, summer is the season for traveling. A delayed or even canceled flight can ruin a perfectly planned expedition. While we are quick to get frustrated, we fail to think of the airline workers that may be even more stressed because these stringent flight conditions are also the conditions of their work life. The airline crisis is not exclusive to the United States as airports in Europe continue to struggle with understaffing, especially in the air traffic control sector.
The Problem
These issues have put so much pressure on the workers that they have threatened to go on strike, putting thousands of flights and subsequent vacations, business trips, and family visits in jeopardy. Union Syndicale Bruxelles (USB), one of the worker unions of Eurocontrol, the main management company for flights in Europe, has announced a period of 6 months where they could take industrial action. This could significantly hinder the Network Manager Operations Centre, which handles more than 10 million flights a year.
Eurocontrol sought to downplay the chaos-inducing situation, saying that it was “premature” to speculate on any potential impact. They are currently still negotiating with the union. Industry analysts back this statement, claiming that the strikes would be irritating but would not be enough to completely stop flights. It would simply mean that airlines would have to work harder internally, and that there would still be service in European airports. However, strikes have already been happening throughout Europe: in Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and other countries. This has resulted in thousands of delays and cancellations, making it hard to predict what will happen in the airline industry these next few months.
The Causes
The workers went on strike for good reason; the staff shortages as a result of the pandemic have made the average work day longer, more stressful, and in poorer conditions. In addition, the rising living costs and pandemic pay cuts make their paychecks smaller as well. The overworked conditions can be attributed to the demand of flights returning to precovid levels, while European airspace is being constricted by Russia’s war in Ukraine. This all requires increased management of flights, which is exactly what Eurocontrol is in charge of. In addition, the most pressing shortage is in air traffic controllers, where many older air traffic controllers retired during the pandemic, and airports were unable to hire enough to make up for the employment gap. These effects have been going on for many months. In 2022, a third of all UK flights were delayed.
An overlaying contributor to labor shortages, delays, and cancellations could be the use of online flight booking. Now that consumers can filter their flights based on pricing without going through the process of traveling agencies and other travel consulting companies, the industry has progressively begun to focus solely on prices. Airlines will cut costs as much as possible to keep their prices competitive, resulting in less staff and subsequently more delays. Delays and cancellations cannot be seen when the consumer is in checkout, so it is no longer one of the top concerns of an airline company.
The airline industry has been hard hit by ripple effects of the Russia-Ukraine war and the pandemic. Labor shortages caused by these effects and a variety of other influences has resulted in a more stressful and poorer paid work day for many airline employees, resulting in these disruptive strikes. Though these acts of retaliation are a nuisance for many travelers, they are valuable indications that the problems in the airline industry must be addressed as soon as possible.
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