Under pressure due to staff recruitment difficulties following the Covid crisis, British Airways tightens up its timetables again. The British carrier explains: " The aviation sector as a whole continues to face significant challenges and we are fully focused on strengthening the resilience of our operations to give customers the certainty they deserve. The government recently decided to grant slot relief across the industry to minimise potential disruption this summer. While we don't want to take any new measures, it's the right thing to do for our customers and colleagues."
This flexibility means that 10,300 flights will be withdrawn from sale.. The following are affected short and medium-haul routes. Long-haul flights, however, are not affected. The measure comes into force on 1 August to give the passengers concerned sufficient time to make their arrangements. " Although most of our flights are unaffected and the majority of customers are able to depart as planned, we do not underestimate the impact this will have. We are doing everything we can to ensure that their travel plans can go ahead." says the company.
For the record, British Airways had already cut some 8,000 flights in an initial announcement. The cuts now represent 13% of the carrier's total capacity and mainly concern London Gatwick airport. Nearly 15% of flights are disappearing at Gatwick, compared with 8% at Heathrow. This translates into more than 100,000 seats eliminated. The British airline is not alone. Easyjet had already announced the cancellation of some 10,000 frequencies between July and September from the UK.
Ultra low-cost Ryanair is facing both staff management difficulties and staff strikes. This is a pan-European strike, but it is mainly affecting the company's staff in Spain.
Lufthansa temporarily discourages demand
For its part, Lufthansa is adopting a radical strategy to deal with this staffing problem. German carrier Lufthansa is temporarily regulating demand with a policy of dissuasive pricing. This is a big surprise for any passenger wishing to take a Lufthansa flight in Europe.. On its booking site, the prices posted by the German airline have soared. A Lyon-Frankfurt single ticket costs 807.66 euros (departure 20/07-price as at 04/07), a Paris-Munich single ticket 556.17 euros.
Boris Ogursky, spokesman for Lufthansa, explains this strategy of dissuading potential customers: " We're facing a huge problem in managing our resources with the staff shortage. As we are forced to cancel flights, we have to reroute passengers already booked on other available flights. This is forcing us to close the sale of low-cost tickets until we have been able to reroute all the passengers affected by the frequency cuts. Only the highest fares remain, as all other booking classes have been suspended."
Business travellers can rest assured that the measure is only temporary. Admittedly, Lufthansa has not confirmed a date for the normalisation of sales conditions. But this policy of high fares will only be in place for a few days.
In the meantime, the carrier has decided to prune its schedules once again. According to the Bloomberg press agency, the German carrier is set to cancel 20% of its frequencies next week on certain days.
KLM in turn applies Lufthansa's policy
Amsterdam airport also hit the headlines in June when its terminal became overcrowded due to staff shortages. KLM initially suspended ticket sales to Amsterdam for a weekend. However, given the persistent problems with passenger management, the airline announced that it was cancelling some flights.
KLM suspends ticket sales at Amsterdam-Schiphol
In a press release, the carrier is announcing the cancellation of 10 to 20 return flights in Europe every day. And this until 28 August. The carrier indicates also have to "severely restrict the sale of remaining seats on KLM and KLM Cityhopper flights to European destinations. This will free up space for customers if their flight is cancelled. This measure will complement the existing restriction on sales, to accommodate passengers who need to be re-routed after missing their flight due to long queues at Schiphol".
This translates into a vertiginous rise in prices. On 8 July, a one-way economy ticket between Nice and Amsterdam for 26/07 was selling for 887 euros, and a single ticket between Paris and Amsterdam for 648 euros. With flights capped at this price level until 8 August. Lufthansa's example hits the nail on the head...
