Airport chaos in NRW at the beginning of the summer holidays: Düsseldorf experiences “disaster with announcement”
Created: 06/25/2022, 06:49 am
By: Kai Hartwig
The summer holidays have begun in the first German federal state.
North Rhine-Westphalia's largest airport is experiencing chaos even before the rush of holidaymakers.
Düsseldorf – The summer holidays have begun in North Rhine-Westphalia.
As the first of the 16 federal states, the approximately 2.5 million schoolchildren there were released on Friday (June 24) on vacation.
For six weeks there is now no school in NRW - this also marks the start of the summer vacation.
With the start of the holidays in Germany's most populous federal state, there is a risk of chaos at the airports, on the train and on the motorways.
Düsseldorf Airport already got a foretaste of this on Friday morning.
There were long queues at baggage check-in and at the security checkpoints.
And that, although the school vacationers were not yet among the travelers.
Düsseldorf Airport: Flight cancellations and huge queues – the start of vacation is likely to worsen the situation
According to a report by
Bild
, various flights from Düsseldorf were canceled, and vacationers were forced to postpone their departure.
According to their own statements, they were at the airport many hours before departure, but that didn't help.
"This is a disaster with an announcement," said Verdi union secretary Özay Tarim to the portal: "We already said last summer that the staffing level in the security area is not sufficient to be able to serve the increased number of passengers."
Chaotic conditions prevailed at Düsseldorf Airport on Friday (June 24).
The rush of tourists caused long queues.
© Thomas Banneyer/dpa
The trade unionist wondered what the situation would be like "when the families with the children arrive here".
In Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia's largest airport is already expecting over 200,000 passengers on the first holiday weekend, Cologne/Bonn around 150,000.
During the entire NRW summer vacation, even three million passengers are to take off from the state capital alone.
Airports are threatened with even more chaos due to staff shortages – 5,500 employees are missing before the holiday rush
But the rush of passengers comes at the wrong time for Düsseldorf and the other German airports.
Airlines are currently struggling with acute staff shortages.
Lufthansa has already had to cancel numerous flights.
"According to information from the aviation industry, around 2,000 employees are currently missing in all areas," the Federal Ministry of Transport recently stated.
According to estimates by airport works councils, around 5,500 employees are missing nationwide.
Many of the former workers at German airports had to look for new jobs due to the corona pandemic.
The spread of the corona virus had extremely limited the number of flights, and the majority of airport employees now had to earn their money elsewhere.
And now it's missing at every nook and cranny.
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In Düsseldorf, attempts were made to counteract the lack of employees with creativity.
Students support the service staff, and targeted coordination at the security checks is intended to make processes more efficient.
In addition, so-called early check-ins are offered from three in the morning.
But Düsseldorf's airport boss is under no illusions: "Unfortunately, this will not be nearly enough to compensate for the staff shortages of the airline and federal police service providers.
Therefore, we fear that the journeys of numerous passengers will start or end with irregularities, delays and long queues.” The airport chaos is therefore likely to continue.
(kh)
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