UK airlines are reportedly resorting to wet leasing aircraft with European crews as they seek to maintain schedules while suffering from severe staff shortages.
British Airways, easyJet and Tui have all been said to have wet leased EU-registered aircraft to overcome post-Brexit rules which require EU staff working on UK-registered aircraft to hold a British visa.
By using the loophole, easyJet has signed eight aircraft from Latvia’s SmartLynx Airlines. Seven will operate out of Gatwick and one from Bristol, The Times reported.
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Tui has leased five of the Latvian aircraft to fly out of Manchester, Gatwick and Doncaster-Sheffield. It also has signed two aircraft from Lithuanian carrier Avion Express for flights out of Gatwick.
British Airways has brought in four aircraft from its Spanish sister airline Iberia and four from Finnair, despite having some of its fleet in storage.
Airline leaders are understood to have warned officials from the Department for Transport during a call last Friday that carriers will run increasing numbers of overseas-flagged aircraft with only a skeleton number of UK-registered versions if ministers do not relax immigration laws.
The airlines said wet leasing is a common industry practice. There is no suggestion that it is breaking any of the UK’s immigration laws.
It is estimated that more than 2.5 million passengers will fly in and out of the UK across the three airlines’ aircraft that are registered overseas and crewed by foreign staff, according to The Telegraph.
A BA spokesperson said: “To offer our customers access to as many destinations as possible, our partner airlines are operating some European flights for us as we continue to rebuild our operation.”
EasyJet and Tui reportedly declined to comment as it emerged that transport secretary Grant Shapps is considering whether to relax rules that prevent airlines from cutting their timetables at capacity constrained airports where take-off and landing slots are scarce.
Shapps has already criticised carriers for selling seats on flights that they were unable to operate.
The Department for Transport released an emergency consultation on ’70:30 rules’ this summer. It would mean airlines must operate 70% of their flights at capacity-constrained airports or hand back the slots to an industry co-ordinator.
Airlines were handed the consultation last Friday and given until Monday to respond, according to an industry source.
Gatwick last week announced it would cancel up to one in ten flights over the summer period to prevent it demanding last-minute cancellations from airlines. It set a maximum of 825 daily flights in July and 850 flights in August, about 100 fewer per day.
Airports across Europe are also reviewing their ability to handle services this summer after Amsterdam Schiphol set a cap on the number of passengers it will handle during the peak summer travel season because of a shortage of staff.
The Dutch hub said it would be able to handle about 70,000 passengers a day — about 16% below what it had planned.
KLM will need to cut about 13,500 seats a day as a result.
The airport’s chief executive Dick Benschop said: “Setting a limit now means that the large majority of travellers will be able to travel from Schiphol in a safe and responsible way.”
Industrial action across Europe is also set to ground flights, including pilots and cabin crew at Brussels Airlines from Thursday to Saturday this week.
Ryanair pilots in Belgium plan to join cabin crew in walking out from Friday to Sunday. Union staff at the airline say negotiations on a new labour agreement had broken down.
Ryanair staff who are members of various unions in Spain, Italy, Portugal and France are also due to start industrial action.
The prospect of a summer of disruption is expected to feature heavily on the agenda at Iata’s annual meeting in Doha, Qatar this week.
Iata vice president for Europe Rafael Schvartzman said the industry was “too late to overcome this challenge for the summer in terms of the ideal number of resources” but insisted that efforts to mitigate disruption were a priority.
He told The Times: “I don’t have a magic solution but everybody is working to mitigate the problems. That’s why we’re asking airports to declare in advance their capacity so we can avoid unpleasant surprises for customers.”
Schvartzman added to industry calls for governments to speed up vetting for new staff, admitting that the industry was struggling with recruitment.
He also sought to play down blame games that have erupted between airlines and governments, adding: “The whole industry has faced an unprecedented challenge [and] it’s right to work together to bring back and serve our passengers in the best way possible.”
Iata director general Willie Walsh also insisted in an interview with CNBC that airport delays were “isolated” and “not every airport is experiencing problems”.