For many travelers, flying to vacation this summer was no fun. Thousands of flights were canceled and long queues formed at the airports. The flight providers are worried because Federal Consumer Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) is threatening to abolish advance payment.
What’s going on in the aviation industry, how bad are the abuses and how long do customers wait for their compensation? Questions to Matthias von Randow, General Manager of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL).
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The 63-year-old has been in this position since July 1, 2022. Before that he was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Urban Development, and from 2009 to 2011 he was an authorized representative at Air Berlin.
Compared to the pre-corona year 2019, the flight offer in the summer of this year is only 75 percent. Nevertheless, the airlines have canceled thousands of flights. Why don’t they manage to serve at least 75 percent 100 percent? With Corona, air traffic can no longer be planned as we have been used to for decades. In the past two and a half years we have had a constant up and down of travel warnings and travel restrictions. Today, destination countries were subject to restrictions, then these were lifted again at short notice – and this was repeated several times and worldwide. However, airlines have to register their flight plans months in advance.
The flight plans for winter 2021/2022 had to be registered in summer 2021. It was looking pretty good back then. Many people were vaccinated. And demand increased. The airlines have registered a corresponding number of flights for the winter timetable. Suddenly omicron came and there were massive travel warnings again well into 2022. Compared to the plan, everything collapsed. That was the initial situation at the beginning of the year when the airlines had to finalize their flights for this summer. How accurately can you then plan flights, personnel and services in such a situation?
But people have been booking trips again since the beginning of the year. No, during the pandemic, customers changed their booking behavior and booked at very short notice. Demand only rose after the travel warnings were lifted at short notice at the end of March, and then by leaps and bounds. And this enormous increase has then encountered bottlenecks in terms of personnel and airspace. That made things difficult. Air traffic was then unable to keep its promise of quality.
How can you sell flights if you don’t have the staff to operate them? You have to realize that the vast majority of flights take place. The summer timetable has 830,000 flights from Germany, 95 to 98 percent of which will be operated. This is still very annoying for everyone whose flight is cancelled. But the bottlenecks that the flight offer then encountered from April were not foreseeable to this extent.
What bottlenecks? First of all bottlenecks in the airspace: Because of the war, the airspace over the Ukraine and Russia is closed, flights are being diverted via the West, above all via Germany. And by the summer, German airspace had to accept flights from France because the technology in an important French air traffic control area was being renewed. What we also could not foresee were the considerable staff shortages due to the enormously high number of sick leave. In a number of relevant areas of ground staff, they are over 30 percent. This has never happened before. This makes reliable operational planning very difficult.
Why are people calling in sick? Are they overworked? Since the employees – except in the case of Corona – do not have to tell their employer why they call in sick, we do not know the reason for their sick call.
During the Corona period, many employees looked for new jobs that might be better paid. Even if working in air transport is attractive and the working conditions are covered by collective agreements, it is true that the two and a half Corona years, which brought a lot of uncertainty for our industry many employees have migrated to sectors that were booming at the time, such as logistics. In addition, we currently have full employment in Germany. Recruiting staff is not easy. It’s not just a question of payment.
How is the search for personnel going? Definitely also internationally. But freedom of movement within the EU is not enough. We also need workers from non-EU countries.
That didn’t work for the Turkish guest workers who were supposed to help out at the airports. Only a tenth has come. Even the few who come help. But of course the example with Turkey shows the fundamental problem of employing people from non-EU countries. After a long back and forth, the employees at the airports were granted an exemption, but it came with so many conditions, such as time limits, that many didn’t want to come at all. The structural bottlenecks cannot be overcome with such regulatory patchwork. From the point of view of the German economy, we need a much more liberal immigration policy for demographic reasons alone. It is good that the coalition has decided to make immigration easier.
But that can take time. Where should the new people come from instead? Our industry is committed to attracting people from European countries where unemployment is still significantly higher. Spain has an unemployment rate in the two-digit range, with young people in particular looking for a job. This is an opportunity.
Perhaps the airlines shouldn’t have cut so many staff. It may be that during the crisis, the duration and depth of which could not be foreseen, too many were cut at one point or another. But the most problematic staffing shortages this summer are in baggage handling, security, and check-in. And not that many jobs have been lost in these areas. The extremely high levels of sickness are a particular problem for us here.
How close is the communication between airports and airlines? All system partners in air traffic work closely together: airlines, airport operators, ground handling service providers and also the police authorities, who organize the security checks. If Lufthansa cancels flights in Frankfurt, for example, in order to smooth out the processes, then it does so in close cooperation with the airport. And when it came to the cancellations that became necessary to stabilize flight operations, she canceled domestic connections in particular because people there had alternative travel options.
Passenger claims for compensation do not affect the congested airports, but only the airlines. After all, the customer has a contractual relationship with the airline. And he has the legal right to a refund or to be rebooked if a flight is cancelled. Under certain conditions, customers are also entitled to a compensation payment. All of these requirements are also met.
The money must be paid within seven days. But that often doesn’t work. That’s not true. There may be individual cases where something does not work immediately. But it usually works without a hitch.
Internet portals such as Flightright have different insights. You say that Lufthansa, for example, often only pays after the threat of legal action. You have to distinguish between the reimbursement of the ticket price and the compensation payment. Our German airlines refund the ticket price within the prescribed period. When it comes to compensation, a number of things must first be checked, for example why the flight was canceled. There are cases in which the airline does not have to pay. This is more complex and can sometimes take longer. If such a case remains disputed, customers can ask the arbitration board for public transport for help free of charge. And there all these cases are quickly resolved.
But customer complaints about the airlines are also increasing at the arbitration board. That goes against your statement that the refunds are working smoothly. It doesn’t. The refund works. When it comes to compensation, there can be disputed cases that can sometimes take a few weeks to be clarified. It is not surprising that the number of complaints is increasing. In the course of Corona, we had so many irregularities in global flight operations that cancellations and delays naturally increased, which is reflected in the increase in complaints. But it is important that all cases are resolved.
Federal Consumer Minister Steffi Lemke is threatening to ban advance payment if ticket refunds and the payment of compensation payments do not go better.
There is no reason for that. The refund works. When it comes to compensatory payments, we have made it possible for customers to claim their claims automatically. Customers are informed of their claims and can assert them online very easily.
There are demands from the Greens, for example, that airlines should pay without being asked. Customers have clearly regulated legal claims for refunds, rebookings and compensation payments, which are also fulfilled. But the customer has to assert the claim by submitting an application. We’ve simplified that a lot, and that’s not too much to ask.
I only have to pay for an expensive television when I buy it and take it with me. For package tours, I pay a deposit and pay the rest later. Why do I have to pay everything in advance for flights? Customers don’t have to book early. But a lot of people do that because they can then take advantage of cheap offers. If you book long-term, you usually pay less. The airline gets planning security through the advance payment and in return rewards early bookers with low prices. A flight is offered months in advance. It loses its value on the departure date, which is different from television. And the customer has no risk. If the flight is cancelled, he gets his money back.
What would happen if advance payment were banned? If this only happened in Germany, our airlines would have an enormous competitive disadvantage. In addition, flights would be more expensive because they would no longer be possible to plan – because the airline has to take into account that the seat booked may remain free and can no longer be sold. The planning security provided by the advance payment also ensures that the machines are utilized as fully as possible. This also makes sense from a climate point of view.
Kerosene is becoming more expensive, personnel costs are rising. Are tickets now also becoming more expensive? When costs go up, so do prices. The price of kerosene has doubled within a year. The kerosene makes up about a third of the cost of a flight. Personnel costs are also increasing. This has consequences for the prices.
The German economy is threatened with a recession. What does that mean for air traffic?Air traffic also follows economic developments. But fundamentally, the demand for air transport is increasing in our increasingly interconnected world. We represent something like the analogue World Wide Web. Fortunately, more and more countries are participating in the development of prosperity in the world. And we bring people together and ensure the international transport of valuable goods.
We had a complete collapse in air traffic during Corona. Now that the travel warnings have been lifted, people want to fly. Incidentally, air freight boomed even during Corona. Air traffic has always recovered from all crises, be it 9/11 or the financial market crisis of 2008/2009. However, we see postponements after two and a half years of Corona. Inner-German routes are now more frequently covered by train or private car.
How are the airlines planning for the winter? After all, people should keep their money together and save. In general, fewer flights are registered for winter than for summer. If there are no travel warnings again, I assume that the situation will stabilize in autumn and fewer flights will have to be canceled. In addition, air surveillance in France is now working normally again.
