Airports slammed as ‘woefully ill-prepared’ by Jet2 boss as travel chaos deemed ‘inexcusable’ | Business News

Jet2 has criticised airports for being “woefully ill-prepared and poorly resourced”, which has led to “inexcusable” journey chaos.

The vacation agency stated clients have needed to endure a “a lot poorer expertise” than they need to have, pointing to airports’ and floor dealing with suppliers’ “usually atrocious customer support”, lengthy queues, baggage dealing with issues, delays, and an absence of onboard catering provides.

1000’s of British travellers have seen their flights cancelled in recent weeks – many at quick discover – because the aviation sector grapples with workers shortages and rising demand after the pandemic.

Government chairman Philip Meeson stated: “Most of our 10 UK base airports have been woefully ill-prepared and poorly resourced for the amount of shoppers they might fairly count on, as produce other suppliers, akin to onboard caterers and suppliers of airport PRM (passengers with lowered mobility) companies.

“Inexcusable, making an allowance for our flights have been on sale for a lot of months and our load components are fairly regular.”

“This troublesome return to regular operations has occurred merely due to the dearth of planning, preparedness and unwillingness to take a position by many airports and related suppliers,” he added.

Jet2 stated it had been “immediately impacted” by the disruption and stated its present yr efficiency would rely on how shortly the aviation sector returns to “some stage of stability”, in addition to the variety of bookings sooner or later.

Learn extra: easyJet reported over treatment of passengers with cancelled flights

The group reported statutory pre-tax losses of £388.8m within the yr to March, up from £341.3m losses the earlier yr.

It got here because the proprietor of Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports introduced losses of £320m throughout the identical interval, with passenger numbers solely at a 3rd of pre-pandemic ranges.

The group served 20.5m passengers, which was greater than triple the determine for the earlier yr, when COVID lockdowns had an influence.

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Manchester Airports Group (MAG) stated its mixed losses for the final two years stand at £694m.

It stated it had, like all airports, “skilled challenges to construct again staffing ranges shortly sufficient to satisfy this returning demand, inflicting some durations of disruption at our airports”.

Nonetheless, MAG stated it has “welcomed lots of of latest colleagues into the operation”, including: “We count on to have the assets we’d like in place forward of the busy summer time season.”