The Transport Secretary has told travel bosses to “do a little” to address the issues causing chaos at airports during the midterm break.
Grant Shapps said “resource stresses in the aviation sector” were not the reason for poor planning and overbooking of flights.
He say Long queues and flight cancellations that ruined many British holidays it was “heartbreaking”.
More than 150 flights have been canceled by British Airways and easyJet on Wednesday, with hundreds of flights hit by airlines over the past week.
There are concerns that the disruption could be worse during the bank holiday weekend.
Airlines say they have struggled to hire quickly enough to deal with pent-up demand after COVID travel restrictions were lifted, while industry bosses are blaming the government for not helping the sector recover properly from the pandemic.
The Department for Transport said Mr Shapps had a “productive meeting” with senior aviation industry leaders yesterday.
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Air travel chaos ‘could get worse’
British Airways, easyJet and TUI Airways attended, along with airports including Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Luton and Newcastle.
Mr Shapps relayed his concern that air passengers were being unfairly ticketed for the holidays they were unable to travel on and said he would continue to talk about options that would offer passengers full refunds. automatic money.
He said the companies experiencing the most disruptions need to learn from those that have run service smoothly.
He said the government had “made the necessary changes to allow the sector to prepare for the summer, but now we need the industries to do their part”.
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‘Perfect storm’ hits UK airports and airlines
“We have been very clear – run services properly and on schedule or provide prompt, appropriate compensation,” he said.
“We don’t want this to happen over the course of the summer – the first summer after COVID – and will meet again in the coming weeks to understand the progress that is being made.”
Read more: Why is there chaos at some UK airports?
The CEO of Airlines UK said airlines wanted to work with ministers to resolve these issues “as quickly as possible”.
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It’s not fair to ‘blame the airline industry’
Karen Dee, chief executive officer of the Airport Operators Association, said the meeting was “a good opportunity to discuss the challenges currently facing airports in the wake of the devastating impact of the pandemic”. and to determine how the industry is “doing its best to get passengers traveling this weekend and prepare for summer”.
There are 10,794 scheduled flights from UK airports from Thursday to Sunday.
