Schipol: fights and chaos at the airport that “too many” passengers don’t want

Airports in Europe compete with each other by measuring the number of passengers they handle each year. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, the leader of Europe was Londoner from Heathrow (80.8 million), followed by Parisian Charles de Gaulle (76.1 million). In third position emerged the Dutchman from Schiphol with 71.6 million. But Schiphol could not be more.

Its main airline, Dutch KLM, was announced on Thursday suspension of ticket sales of flights departing from Schiphol in the coming days. No more tickets even until Monday. The planes they are not full.

The problem is at the airport. Schiphol cannot afford to manage so far the number of passengers it managed before the pandemic despite the fact that its infrastructures are the same. The reason? Lack of staff.

KLM posted on Thursday on its website that “unfortunately, queues at security checkpoints areis older than usualwith a strong impact on waiting time ”from the arrival of a person at the airport until they board their plane.

The airline admitted there were many passengers missing their flights for the times they have to pass controls and want to leave vacant seats in the coming days for these people.

This is a short-term solution to a problem that has been growing since the end of health restrictions against covid-19. The number of passengers continues to grow as the number of employees at the airport can’t recover levels before the pandemic.

fights

The long wait time causes frustration and nervousness and the “Royal Marechausse” (the military police responsible for airport security) need to intervene several times to break up fights between passengers and passengers with security checkpoint staff.

Dutch media say some passengers boarded, taking advantage of the chaos, without going through mandatory security controls. Other airlines suspended their flights while the airport management company failed to successfully request the intervention of the Ministry of Defense.

Schiphol on Thursday unveiled a plan to tackle a crisis that could cause weight loss at airports in Europe. A few hundred kilometers away you have those Brussels, Dortmund, Dusseldorf or Cologne-Bonn, in addition to the regional airports (Maastricht, Eindhoven, Weeze) already used by cheap airlines such as Ryanair.

The plan, which should be in place before the summer holidays begin and Schiphol sees more passengers arriving, consists of hire more service staffhandling baggage and greatly increasing the number of security personnel to open more lines of control of passengers.

In addition, the airport will change the management of departures and landings to have fewer flights this summer and divert part of its flights to Rotterdam and other small airports. Airlines have their spaces at Schiphol. The company asks them to voluntarily exchange them for slots at another airport or be forced to cancel flights.

Schiphol’s plan to attract more staff is based, he promised, on offering jobs in more attractive conditions therefore recognizing that if it did not recover the number of pre-pandemic employees it was not because it did not want to take but because There are not enough candidates to fill the positions offered.

Most staff at Schiphol do not report directly to the airport but to subsidiary companieswho is responsible, for example, for baggage management or security controls.

If in the normal period before the pandemic, the airport had approx 5,000 jobsso far it has not reached 4,500, but the shortage of staff is concentrated in minimum wage job. there is hundreds of job offers on the airport website.

The problem at Schiphol could be prolonged. In early May, the French newspaper ‘Le Monde’ reported that between the two main airports in Paris (Charles de Gaulle and Orly) there was an hole of 4,000 employees which is not covered by the management company, ADP.

During the pandemic, Paris airports laid off 1,150 employees through an ERE. Now they want to hire but they can’t find it. lacking in all: security agents, maintenance technicians and even engineers. Unions ensure that after laying off staff with 20 or 30 years of experience, companies now aim to hire payment of the minimum wage.

Brussels, special for Clarín

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