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Travelers at Cologne-Bonn Airport: The aviation industry reacts succinctly, we are so sorry, external factors
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Panama Pictures / IMAGO
How excited were people to travel again!
Now that summer has started, they are literally sitting on packed suitcases.
And in crowded terminals.
There they wait, crying and cursing.
Many are at their wits end.
Airlines such as Lufthansa, Eurowings and Easyjet are currently canceling thousands of flights, some shortly before departure, while the travelers are already at the airport.
The anticipation of the holiday turns into anxious anxiety to the last.
Some people, one hears, don't want to fly anymore.
Lest the flight get canceled at the last minute anyway.
So rather Rhön instead of Rhodes?
The enormous frustration that is being discharged at German airports these days is understandable.
The flight ticket or package tour was usually paid for in full months ago.
But in the end do you get what you bought?
That remains open for now.
The airlines take it upon themselves to decide this spontaneously at their own discretion.
The airlines often only provide information about which flights are being canceled when it can no longer be avoided.
Customers lack planning security.
In the worst case, they go to the airport for free.
Air travelers are largely powerless against the arbitrariness of the airlines.
This creates a feeling of powerlessness, also of anger.
As a holidaymaker, you can take a few points into account yourself in order to get off on time, but you are helplessly at the mercy of the opaque cancellation practice.
If the flight is canceled at short notice, it is not uncommon for people to chase after legitimate compensation for a long time or in vain.
Of course, according to the EU passenger rights regulation, there is actually a right to either a refund or a rebooking.
But theory and practice differ widely here.
What do you do when there are no alternative flights to your destination in the near future, but the holiday accommodation and rental car have long been booked and paid for?
If you then have no cancellation option for the hotel and car, the refund will not help much.
Then it's "Hope for goodwill".
You would have liked to have felt different emotional states this summer: euphoria, wanderlust, love of life.
Apart from the lost vacation days.
Sometimes it also happens that the airline wants to rebook its so-called guests on a complicated connection.
For example from Berlin via London to Vienna.
Something like that ruins the joy of travel even for stoic optimists.
Of course you can do without such offers, take the refund and – if available – book new flights.
But isn't that already pretty underground service?
What percentage of the German population is able to independently book a new flight on a portal within a few hours?
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If an airline cancels a flight at very short notice, it actually has to pay compensation (if it is – as is currently the case – responsible for the cancellation itself).
But with some airlines you can't get your money without legal support.
According to the legal service providers, this particularly affects Lufthansa, which still sees itself as a “premium airline” but has currently been downgraded from five to four stars by Skytrax.
If the flight is actually allowed to take off, the all-clear is not yet announced.
You first have to go through the security check with its seemingly endless queues.
Those who come too late will be left standing.
And if you don't ask your way ahead in a friendly manner when you're pressed for time, you can be blamed for missing the flight.
The tip here is to be at the airport as early as possible, at least three hours before departure.
Of course, that's a lot of fun on a holiday flight at 7 a.m.
If you dare to fly to your summer vacation with checked baggage, you have to stand in another queue.
A failure of the system
The current flight chaos has two main causes.
It has long been known that there is a lack of staff at airports, for example at the security checkpoint.
During Corona, tens of thousands of employees looked for other jobs.
But now the airlines are also lacking more and more employees.
The reason: The Omicron variant BA.5 causes the number of cases to rise sharply again.
Too many on-board personnel become ill and the gaps cannot be filled.
A solution to these problems is not in sight, at most "damage limitation," as a Ver.di trade unionist recently said.
Accordingly, the aviation industry confirms succinctly: we are so sorry, external factors.
Passengers who find themselves in the middle of chaos can only grumble: cheek!
Consumer advocates have long been of the opinion that the prepayment system for flights must be abolished.
Maybe that would increase reliability?
There is a suspicion that the airlines, which have been badly hit by the pandemic, want to secure customer money as sales as early as possible.
And they try to put as many flights as possible into their booking systems, of which it is not clear how many will ultimately be carried out.
Such an approach can make good business sense.
Frustrated customers will find this rather bold and outrageous.
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Sure, the glory days of flying were over long before Corona.
Those days, when you still sublimely escaped from everyday life, attentively cared for by exceptionally friendly stewardesses and employees at check-in and gate.
Aviation, over the years, has become a maximally efficient and lackluster enterprise, which everyone first lamented and then accepted.
At least one was shipped halfway punctually, unless Air Berlin slid into bankruptcy.
But then came the pandemic.
Flight cancellations and the fight for refunds drove many travelers to the brink of despair.
Most of them were probably looking forward to a largely carefree travel summer.
Unfortunately in vain.
It's nice at home too
The chaos is partly homemade.
It had been obvious for a long time that this summer there would be a shortage of staff for ground handling.
That Corona wouldn't go away, basically too.
Now a fragile system, which has always been sewn to the last detail, is collapsing in parts.
The ones who suffer are the travellers, their longing for a holiday is shamelessly disappointed.
Those who have not planned a flight at all have the least stress.
At least not during the holidays.
Now those who were already heavily burdened by corona lockdowns, daycare and school closures and homeschooling are suffering the most: families with children.
What to do?
Switching to the train is not a joy, as is well known.
And where to go?
Beautiful accommodations in summer are hard to find in Germany or are immensely expensive.
Are you looking for a pretty holiday home in the outskirts of Berlin, in Bavaria or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the coming weeks?
Much luck!
