Summer travel pushing aviation workers to the brink

In 2021, the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) called for a number of changes to be made to the aviation sector to ensure the industry could recover quickly from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ETF called regulators to ensure that people would be at the heart of the aviation sector and repeatedly asked to maintain the staffing levels. Unfortunately, nobody listened. So now that COVID restrictions have been lifted and summer travel has rolled in, with staffing often still at COVID levels, workers are being pushed beyond their limits and passengers are angry over cancelled flights.

On one side, millions of discontent passengers are suffering from cancellations of flights or significant delays all across Europe, and the overstretched aviation workers are being asked day after day to work beyond exhaustion to cover for the staff shortages in aviation. 

On the other side: the European Commission, governments and regulators, seem to be totally disconnected and utterly uninterested in the dramatic reality the industry is facing. They remain completely still and silent, almost in a defying way.