Air traffic chaos continues at UK airports

The UK's flight disruption was the worst in Europe in recent months, according to Tui, while Manchester was the most affected airport, as the travel operator reported a €75 m 63 m hit from air traffic chaos.

Sebastian Ebel, Tui's incoming chief executive who will take over the top job at the beginning of October, said we had significant challenges and interruptions on the UK side.

Ebel said that they had never before invested so much into standby aircraft, wet lease short-term capacity, and into people to take the calls.

He said the company had not anticipated such disruption as consumer demand for foreign holidays bounced back in the spring after the lifting of coronaviruses travel restrictions.

Tui blamed labour shortages for the difficulties at Manchester and said there had also been disruption at Amsterdam Airport, which is continuing.

There were airports which were by far worse than others and it was more or less that the workforce was not available, mainly on security but also sometimes on baggage handling, according to Ebel.

In May, Tui announced the cancellation of 180 flights from Manchester Airport until the end of June, representing six flights a day, as it tried to get customers to their destinations during school half-term holidays.

The German-headquartered firm said these cancellations represented 1% of its summer programme. It previously insisted it had cancelled fewer flights than its rivals, including easyJet and British Airways, and promised its customers it had learned from flight delays and cancellations.

Passengers trying to get away on long-awaited holidays have had to face weeks of long lines and cancelled takeoffs.

Tui said that the disruption had mostly abated over the past fortnight, and that it was back to normal despite the large number of customers jetting off on the summer holidays.

It said it had brought 96% of its customers to their destination on time or with a delay of less than three hours in May and June.

Europe's largest tour operator carried 5.1 million passengers between April and June an increase of 84% in passenger numbers compared to 2019.

Tui said that they would have made a profit during the quarter for the first time since the pandemic, had it not been for the €75 m hit by flight disruption.

In the three months to June, it made a €27 m underlying pre-tax loss, instead of a near 50 m profit.

Ebel said the company remained optimistic about the future despite the squeeze on consumers' incomes because of the crisis in tourism wreaked by the epidemic.

Ebel said that we are cautious when it comes to capacity, but overall we see stable demand in a more challenging environment.