Europe's travel sector faces more disarray amid labour woes

AMSTERDAM/PARIS/DOHA • After 21 years as a service agent at Air France, Mr Karim Djeffal left his job during the Covid-19 pandemic to start his own job-coaching consultancy.

"If this doesn't work out, I won't be going back to the aviation sector," says the 41-year-old bluntly. "Some shifts started at 4am and others ended at midnight. It could be exhausting."

Mr Djeffal offers a taste of what airports and airlines across Europe are up against as they race to hire thousands to cope with resurgent demand, dubbed "revenge travel" as people seek to make up for vacations lost during the pandemic.

Airports in Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands have tried offering perks including pay rises and bonuses for workers who refer a friend.

Leading operators have flagged thousands of openings across Europe. But the industry says European aviation as a whole has lost 600,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic. Yet the hiring blitz could not come fast enough to erase the risk of cancelled flights and long waits for travellers even beyond the summer peak, analysts and industry officials say.

The summer when air travel was supposed to return to normal after a two-year pandemic vacuum is in danger of becoming the summer when the high-volume, low-cost air travel model broke down - at least in Europe's sprawling integrated market.

Labour shortages and strikes have already caused disruption in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Frankfurt this spring. Airlines such as low-cost giant easyJet are cancelling hundreds of summer flights and new strikes are brewing in Belgium, Spain, France and Scandinavia.

As industry leaders head to a summit in Qatar this week, a major theme will be who bears responsibility for the chaos between airlines, airports and governments.

"There is a lot of mud-slinging but every side is at fault in not coping with the resurgence of demand," said Mr James Halstead, managing partner at consultancy Aviation Strategy.

The aviation industry says it has lost 2.3 million jobs globally during the pandemic, with ground-handling and security hardest hit, according to Air Transport Action Group which represents the industry. Many workers are slow to return, lured by the "gig" economy or opting to retire early.

"They clearly have alternatives now and can switch jobs,"said senior ING economist Rico Luman.

While he expects travel pressure will ease after the summer, he says shortages may persist as older workers stay away and critically, there are fewer younger workers willing to replace them. "Even if there is a recession, the labour market will remain tight at least this year," he said.

A major factor slowing hiring is the time it takes new workers to get security clearance, in France up to five months for the most sensitive jobs, said the CFDT union.

Ms Marie Marivel, 56, works as a security operator screening luggage at CDG for around €2,100 (S$3,070) a month post-tax. She says shortages have led to staff being overworked. Stranded passengers have been turning aggressive. Morale is low. "We have young people who come and leave again after a day," she says. "They tell us we're earning cashiers' wages for a job with so much responsibility."

After much disruption last month, the situation in France is stabilising, said Ms Anne Rigail, chief executive of the French arm of Air France-KLM. Even so, Paris's Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, where one union has called a strike on July 2, still need to fill a total of 4,000 vacancies, according to the operator.

And in the Netherlands, where unemployment is much lower at 3.3 per cent, unfilled vacancies are at record highs and KLM's Schiphol hub has seen hundreds of cancelled flights and long queues. Schiphol has now given a summer bonus of €5.25 per hour to 15,000 workers in security, baggage handling, transportation and cleaning - a 50 per cent increase for those on minimum wage.

"That's of course huge, but it still isn't enough," said Mr Joost van Doesburg of union FNV.

"Let's be honest, the last six weeks have not really been an advertisement for coming to work at the airport."

REUTERS