I have another method. Let everyone go during covid and then attempt to re-hire them all on less generous terms after the fact. Looking at you DUB (and no doubt many others).
Swiss airlines have the same issue. Pay is absolute garbage and some that have been there for 20 years are actually making less than they did back then. Many left and switched cariers during covid. It's an absolute shit show and if it keep going like this they will go bankrupt again. This time I hope we finally learn and have the government juat take it over or let it die off.
Yet still the UK holiday companies are endlessly pimping last minute summer deals with the knowledge that flights through July and August are going to be totally messed up.
People now have to wait for hours, hundreds of flights are cancelled daily and they still refuse to pay a reasonable wage. Of course the CEO blames everything on others and allots himself a big bonus as usual.
And society bailed out these guys in a big way during Corona... Next time we should just let them fall.
Not really in the UK. There wasn't any special package for airports/airlines, just the standard furlough scheme. Plus the international travel restrictions were absolutely ridiculous and literally changing day to day (for absolutely no benefit, as nowhere in Europe was running zero covid, so it literally may have saved a few days of virus growth).
For most sectors yes it was. For airlines and airports it wasn't as helpful, as the sector had very low demand throughout the whole pandemic, minus a couple of 'false start' months.
Compare this to busses and trains who got furlough PLUS a very generous package to cover nearly all of their running costs.
You seem to be talking about aid paid to companies.
The furlough scheme allowed companies to keep employees without having to pay them (they were paid by government). If airlines and airports were so short-sighted to still layoff plenty of staff then they should now be made to bear the full cost.
Furlough wasn't no cost though for companies. There were many months where you had to pay at least employers NI (which is not trivial when you are getting little to no revenue), and often a signifcant contribution of the salary too.
There really wasn't an option for many airlines and airports to continue furloughing everyone, they simply didn't have the cash to do so.
Ryanair did have the cash and they didn't lay anyone off to my knowledge - and hence are having way better performance than nearly anyone else in Europe (they also have their own airport ground crews at many airports).
> to re-hire them all on less generous terms after the fact
How executives get away with these decisions... and it's Europe wide situation if not worldwide. Of course from the perspective of executives the COVID era was a success because they fetched government bailouts, then diluted the companies' shares. Great success! bonuses followed.
Seemingly all of them across Europe done that.
There are talks to hire experienced people from Turkey to help with the workers shortage.
My guess, most people saw the airport job as a jumping board and just needed a push to quit and never come back.
Importing Turkish workers to handle Schiphol is going to cause a clusterfuck in Dutch politics through the islamophobes. The Turks were the biggest initial group of immigrants that caused backlash here.
