To ask IF this government have done enough to help aviation?

[mummsnetty]

With all the news of baggage issues, flights being cancelled, queues to check in and security the government response has been that they have done their bit.

Have they?

Did they but they should still do more now?

I'm under impression it's only some companies, some airports, struggling. The picture is very patchy.

The tour operators SACKED their staff, not furloughed them. Hence the shortage of staff.

It is not a government problem....

Covid and Brexit have changed labour market dynamics out of all recognition. The airlines and airports seem to have been massively optimistic that they could keep their old pay and employment conditions in a massively constrained labour market. Business models will need to change to adjust.

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With Brexit, the UK has become a less attractive place for foreigners to work and Brits don't seem to want minimum wage jobs so we are left with a chronic shortage of staff in aviation, NHS (100,000 vacancies) and many other lower paying industries.

It's not about me only. It's about the 2.5 million people my industry employs in the UK. Some travel even more than me, some don't travel at all. It's a wide spectrum, but most of the jobs that don't involve travel wouldn't actually be that sustainable long-term if it weren't for those of us who do fly regularly.

'You just find another job'. Please do enlighten us with your plan for these two and a half million people to find alternative employment in the current situation. What would those jobs be? I'm genuinely curious.

More to the point, even if you considered that you couldn't predict the future, surely you wouldn't sell tickets for something you couldn't be sure of operating. You especially wouldn't continue selling tickets once the shit had hit the fan.

Another thread tried to imply this was because of brexit, it is management fault across the board and not wanting to pay realistic wages, it is why the same situation is happening across the globe in this industry, neolib policy is slowly folding in on itself

I worked in the aviation industry for over two decades. I was pretty much pushed into “voluntary” redundancy and didn’t even get a thank you when I went. Those at the top have taken bonuses and ruined the companies. The bottom of the barrel has been scraped. The government shouldn’t be bailing out these companies, they should be kicking their arses. They cannot run these companies on inexperienced, underpaid staff (and less of those staff than they should have). Time to realise they can’t make more and more profit for board members/share holders each year, it’s time to invest and improve.

Speaking specifically about one major uk airline ...... they made staff redundant and twisted the arms of thousands of others into voluntary redundancy by slashing wages (cuts of 60% were threatened, in reality its turned out to be nearer 30%) and decimating terms and conditions so that lots of staff were unable to continue in their roles whilst having families etc
Those that did stay are now leaving in droves due to horrendous working conditions, and getting new staff in, vetted and trained is taking time.
Have no sympathy for airlines, they do not deserve it - well, one major player doesn't anyway.

@EileenGC unless you have an almost unique manual skill, there is no need to fly 50 to 60 times a year. Your company is badly organised.

I used to fly 20+ times a year, then they invented the internet.

And there you have it! Ever heard of something called the performing arts? In my particular area of the job, there are literally single-figures of other people with comparable skills - on the specific equipment I use - in the whole of Europe. It IS almost unique.

My company is not ‘badly organised’. We don’t fly people around for the sake of it. My company offers a service that is in high demand internationally and there is literally no one else with the same skill set for thousands of miles from here. It’s not about sending people in marketing or sales to a 3-
day conference in Singapore. Those have already moved online like most office-based industries. But there are some of us who can’t do their job over the internet. If we stopped working abroad, there would be a knock-on effect on other large sections of the industry.

Mumsnet believes everybody works in a bog-standard office, a school or an NHS hospital. People are ridiculed for saying they have a ‘niche job’ but it’s only when you work in one that you realise how very different and unique some professions and their demands are, and how many people they actually employ.

Not trying to imply anything. I suspect there is a wide and varied range of reasons for the issues being covered in the media at the moment. Based on the debate within this thread, it seems it is less to do with anything the government have or have not done and more to do with poor company management.

So there probably is a degree of brexit involved within the spectrum of causes for the current issues.

Yes I agree it seems to be the same names cropping up in media reports, primarily Tui

For somebody who worked in aviation for two decades, you seem to be quite poorly-informed about industry changes over the past thirty years, even before you factor in the effect of the pandemic.

Ever since EasyJet and Ryanair disrupted the market in the 1990s, the trend has been towards low cost flights. Passengers complain bitterly about Ryanair but still book in their droves, despite the chief exec making it very clear that he doesn’t care much about service.

Other airlines have gone out of business because they won’t, or can’t, compete. Flybe, Monarch, BMI, Alitalia for example. The Dutch and Spanish governments had to bail out KLM and Iberia.

All of this is driven by the choices passengers make. People want to fly off to Madrid for £40. That’s what has ‘ruined the companies’, not ‘those at the top taking bonuses’. What do you expect the airlines to do? Cheerfully slide into insolvency? Of course they are going to attempt to cut costs, in order to stay in business. Suggesting that the government should be ‘kicking their arses’ after an event that would have killed the industry without government intervention, just because nobody said thank you to you when you took voluntary redundancy, feels a bit spiteful.

Most U.K. airlines asked pilots to take pay cuts in order to get through winter 2021 and survive. The pilots agreed, to save job losses. If a business has very little revenue coming in, it can’t afford to carry a load of fixed costs. Not if it wants to stay in business. That’s the reality.

@Iamthewombat

All of this is driven by the choices passengers make. People want to fly off to Madrid for £40. That’s what has ‘ruined the companies’, not ‘those at the top taking bonuses’. What do you expect the airlines to do? Cheerfully slide into insolvency? Of course they are going to attempt to cut costs, in order to stay in business.

Exactly. Flying has become too cheap so airports/airlines have to cut costs accordingly to give their passengers the "cheap" flight that they want, hence the no-frills approach.

We constantly hear about trains being "too expensive" because you can fly cheaper, but the reality is that air travel is too cheap.

If we are serious about climate change and customer service, then the price of flights has to increase back to the kind of prices we saw a couple of decades ago.

Private shareholders?
Who get the benefit when the goings good. Then expect taxpayer bail outs when the going's bad.
The government needs to focus on public services and let the private sector sort themselves out.
That said I think i they privatised industries that never should have been (care homes for example)
So in answer to your question yeah the governments done enough.

@Aubree17 You do realise that the pensions of millions of people are invested in shares don’t you? If you have a pension, you are a shareholder. If you are going to get a public service pension, where is that invested? Ummm??? Such ignorance.

The price of flying will have to go up. It’s not sustainable with insufficient staff. Of course Brexit made a difference! Who did the lower paid jobs? The demand exceeds supply and the price goes up. The industry was on its knees for two years. It will Need two years to get back. Not one summer of over booking!

Yes. And when times are good the pension holder gets the benefit. When times are bad they shouldn't expect the tax dollars of Jo bloggs who had no pension and no investments to bail them out.

And we can have a rational debate without resorting to calling each other ignorant.

Surprised at reading some of these responses.

Short memories really. Furlough was only paid until September. There were still red lists in place in February. It can take between 3 & 6 months to train and complete all of the background checks to access a secure environment.

The govt did not do enough to support the industry. What we’re seeing now is a result of that.

Low cost carriers make it accessible for ‘regular’ families to go on holiday. It would be a shame if we lost that.

I think the airlines have shown themselves to be motivated purely by money throughout the whole pandemic.

They were going crazy during the peaks of Covid demanding that people fly all over the world without precautions.

They've laid off staff rather than keeping people on waiting for improvements, despite taking furlough payments and big handouts.

They've overbooked knowing they no longer have the staff to provide the service they've taken money for.

No the Government shouldn't be doing more. The airlines, as private companies, should be improving their own performance.

Common sense would dictate that you pay those who are responsible for the safety of aircraft, making sure nothing hazardous gets on board, more than minimum wage.
Instead they are offering about 40p over.

I’m not at all misinformed thank you. The airline I worked for had made billions prior to Covid. It was perfectly healthy. They bought half the smaller airlines you mentioned…