Who’s to blame for the air travel crisis?

I sincerely hope you’re not reading this on a holiday flight that’s sitting on the tarmac with no indication as to when it might take off – or a sad train home after your flight was suddenly cancelled. Brace for three-hour delays at security, we’re told; don’t even try checking bags in, and at worst, as happened to Tui passengers at Manchester who thought they were going to Kos, watch out for a text after you’ve boarded telling you you’re going nowhere at all.

How and why? When the pandemic set in, airlines and airports – thinking, not unreasonably, that their industry was doomed – made mass redundancies rather than keeping sufficient staff on furlough. Now the industry is 100,000 staff short (10,000 at Heathrow alone), labour is scarce everywhere, rehiring is delayed by ‘airside security pass’ checks, and the Unite union is rubbing its hands at the scale of wage offers needed to address the problem.