Aviation minister Robert Courts says a new strategic risk group that will see aviation bosses meet each week will “hold the sector to account” after recent disruption at airports.
The minister said: “This group will identify possible interventions to further improve the resilience of the sector and will be used to hold the sector to account for delivering its schedules.
“Department for Transport ministers and senior officials will continue to monitor the situation closely to make sure consumers do not lose out from any further disruption.”
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He said the long queues and cancellations seen at airports over the recent half-term break were “largely due to staff shortages at airports, airlines and ground handlers”.
“These experiences, for too many consumers recently, have been unacceptable,” he said.
“The secretary of state for transport [Grant Shapps] and I have made it clear to the sector that they need to operate services that are offered for sale properly and according to schedule, or provide swift, appropriate compensation.
“The aviation industry is privately owned, operated and run. It is, therefore, responsible for making sure that it has enough staff to meet demand and to operate the flights offered for sale.
“It is important that the sector is a competitive, attractive market for workers. The government has called upon the sector’s leadership to offer better packages and build a resilient workforce to meet demand.”
News of the aviation resilience planning group comes after Courts appeared on Tuesday (June 14) at a special session of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee, which investigated the recent problems.
Courts’ statement about the new resilience group echoed his comments at the session, which outlined government actions aimed at alleviating the issues.
“The government is taking steps to boost consumer rights, including recently consulting on using our Brexit freedoms to enhance consumer protections,” he said in the statement.
“We have committed to publishing an aviation passenger charter to ensure consumers can access information about their rights all in one place.
“We have sought ways to ease the burden of background checks carried out by industry. A statutory instrument was laid on 29 April 2022 to provide greater flexibility, enabling ministers to take the decision to allow certain training to be undertaken while background checks were completed.
“Ministers have also agreed that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) employment history letters can be used as a suitable form of reference check with safeguards in place. These temporary alleviations have helped to speed up recruitment times.”
His statement also highlighted how the government and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) wrote to industry bosses setting out five specific expectations for this summer.
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