Ministers must stop passing the buck onto the travel industry as it plays the blame game over flight delays and cancellations.
The demand came from Aito chairman Chris Rowles who accused the government of contributing to the malaise.
He said: “Government, please hold up your hands and acknowledge your major part in the airport chaos that reigns at present.
“The government is playing the blame game, and trying to pass the buck to the wider travel industry.
“But everyone in travel, including Aito specialist tour operators and Aito specialist travel agents, has suffered hugely during the two long years of Covid. This has been caused largely by three key linked factors.
“The current airport issues are, in the main part, firstly,due to the government’s stop/start policy in relation to overseas travel and, secondly due to its total lack of sector-specific support for the travel industry over the past two years.
“The third key factor is government’s total lack of understanding of the travel industry, despite our huge efforts to get these key messages through to the five government bodies to which the travel industry reports.”
Aito highlighted areas for which government must take responsibility:
- Airlines being instructed to return to 70% capacity by now, ie summer 2022, from pretty much a standing start. This means that they have to sell the capacity created or risk failing.
- The very long security-check process for airport staff. It took far too long for the government to agree that new recruits could be trained during the security-checking process to save time. This is finally now in place, but airports are so far behind that they can’t easily make up for the lost time.
- Skilled overseas workers being denied relevant visas despite a huge shortage of supply in respect of a wide range of travel-related occupations. Travel leaders asked government to consider this option only last week; the request was turned down.
Rowles added: “Consumers are, quite rightly, protesting about changes and cancellations to their holiday flights, but the issues need to be clearly explained.
“Tour operators and travel agents have, unfortunately, no influence whatsoever over airlines – easyJet and British Airways, for example – and their schedules.
“That said, we are working extremely hard to amend arrangements and to keep our clients informed. We answer our phones and we email our customers – unlike the airlines – and are doing our utmost to help clients in a difficult scenario which is absolutely not of our making.”