Across Europe many business travellers and holidaymakers have been left frustrated due to cancelled airline flights. This situation has been worse in the U.K., where budget airlines dominate the shortfall flight arena.
Passengers booked with airline businesses like EasyJet, British Airways, Tui Airways and Wizz Air are among those who have seen their plans to return from holiday breaks being disrupted.
The main reason that the shortage in flights has arisen is due to airlines accepting toom many booking and not having sufficient flight crews available. During the coronavirus pandemic, many airlines let personnel go and they have struggled to employ new members of staff, which is partly a product of low wages on offer in the buoyant economy, as well as there being insufficient time to train the new recruits.
Overall, many parts of the travel sector were short-sighted in planning for the resumption of activity following the easing of the coronavirus measures.
This situation has become acutely apparent in terms of Internet searches. Here searches for ‘cancel my flight’ have increased sharply, rising to the highest point in a year. This came as holidaymakers faced hour long delays at airports
An analysis of Google search data reveals that searches for ‘cancel my flight’ exploded 163 percent in the U.K. as of the week between 22nd May 2022 and 4th June 2022.
The last week of May was a school vacation period as well as Jubilee weekend (marking the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth as head of state).
The analysis comes from by travel firm OurWovenJourney and it has been provided to Digital Journal. The research reveals a big climb in people seeking to cancel their travel plans. The data also reveals that searches for ‘refund my flight’ have rose 137 prcent since the chaos began.
A spokesperson from OurWovenJourney tells Digital Journal: “With over 200 flights being cancelled in the last week due to staffing issues in airports up and down the country, it is fascinating to see the scale at which British holidaymakers are making the decision to cancel their own flights and not risk hour long queues and general travel disruption.”
The company adds: “These findings highlight the enormous impact that airlines are having on their customers with searches for ‘cancel my flight’ higher during this period than when travel restrictions as a result of lockdown were in effect.”
The situation is yet to be resolved, although the end of the holiday window has addressed some of the burden. This situation may be short-lived with a series of rounds of industrial action being considered by trade unions.
