Airline chaos from those who took millions in pandemic furlough payments - Jayne Dowle

Which is why I spend hours on Google Earth, measuring out distances from accommodation to beach and nearest supermarket, double-checking the travel insurance – no mention of monkeypox, last time I looked – and making friends over messaging services with whoever we’re renting anything from to prove we’re nice people and persuade them against any possibility of sudden and abrupt cancellation.

My family roll their eyes with incredulity, but I remind them of that day in Naples in 2019 when our booking.com host cancelled our apartment rental on the morning of the reservation, leaving us with nowhere in Italy to stay for three nights. I know exactly what that awful, stomach-churning feeling of panic feels like. A feeling that so many unwitting holidaymakers are experiencing this week as many of Britain’s airports descend into such chaos that the police have had to be called in.

I feel so sorry for everyone who has managed the gargantuan task of getting themselves, children and luggage to a UK airport, only to stand in the check-in queue for four hours to be told by a text message from their tour operator that their longed-for trip is off.

If you’re travelling independently, as we were in Naples, you have to be prepared to fall back on your own resources; after two hours on the phone to booking.com, we did end up with an alternative place to stay, which actually turned out to be far nicer than our failed first choice.

I’ll never forget feeling so stranded and powerless though. I can only imagine what travellers are going through as their phone pings with a text telling them that they won’t be boarding the plane after all.

Do the airlines and travel companies never, ever consider the stress and financial loss innocent people are suffering at their expense? A decent travel insurance policy will cover some ‘end user’ failures, but it’s highly unlikely to recompense add-on costs such as car-hire abroad and booked excursions.

Who’s to blame for this state of chaos?

The airlines and holiday companies? They will cite everything from bad weather in the Med to travellers forgetting the 10ml rule for all bottles in hand luggage, but really should look to their own business practices first.

At Manchester airport alone, holiday company Tui announced it was cancelling a quarter of its flights to cope with the half-term rush. I’ll just repeat that: “to cope with the half-term rush”.

Surely summer half-term should be welcomed with open arms by the airlines, knowing that so many young families, under the cosh of term-time holiday fines, will want to go away? Are these the same travel companies which took millions upon millions in pandemic furlough payments, axed staff and then – it’s reported – oversold holidays and flights to rake up the coffers, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be able to deliver?

EasyJet, which has cancelled a number of flights at short notice over the past three days, insisted it had enough crew and blamed other logistical issues. These are people running airlines, whose very business should be ‘logistical issues’.

Not travellers, for sure, who’ve booked in good faith and likely paid over the odds as airlines and holiday companies ramped up their prices as soon as Covid-related travel restrictions lifted.

And not the incredibly hard-pressed on-the-ground and in-the-air travel industry workers either, bearing the brunt of traveller anger and seething with frustration at greedy airline bosses, who have been squeezing staff and travellers until the pips squeak since way before the pandemic.

The Government, meanwhile, have seemingly been turning their backs on the debacle. Downing Street refutes that this is the case, but it’s reported that security checks carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority and Cabinet Office on potential airline industry recruits, which should take about 14 weeks, are thought to have risen to up to six months.

Whether chaotic half-term holidays should be a matter for the Prime Minister, father of at least seven children, is a moot point, but it’s hardly the best example of post-Brexit Britain to show to the world. Now however, there are signs that something might be moving at last.

Under pressure from Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, who’s called for Ministers to hold to account the travel industry on low pay, red tape and recruitment, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has waded in, accusing airlines and operators of “seriously overselling flights and holidays” at a time when the industry doesn’t have the staffing capacity to deliver.

I can’t help but remind you that it was Mr Shapps’s insistence on ridiculous Covid restrictions and testing which helped to bring the airline industry to its knees in the first place. So let’s wish him luck with that one, and maybe even bon voyage.