No respite for holidaymakers as airline vacancies hit record high

The travel industry is in chaos for one very big reason: airlines and airports cannot get enough staff.

International travel was largely curtailed in the pandemic. Though furlough helped keep swathes of the nation’s workers in post, the travel sector laid off workers, particularly as restrictions and travellers’ fears of the virus lasted longer than the job retention scheme.

As a result, employment plunged.

In March 2020, some 81,000 people were employed in air transport, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). By March this year, that had fallen by 14pc to 70,000.

Now, as the number of job vacancies in Britain hit record highs, there is no sign of respite for the travel sector already engulfed in chaos largely caused by staff shortages.

Companies have made some headway clawing back lost headcount — at the lowest point last year just 66,000 people worked in air travel — but have a long way to go to reach the numbers needed to run a restored service.

Unfortunately for them and any travellers, however, it is not only airlines and airports seeking to take on new staff.

Bosses across Britain sought 1.3m new members of staff in the three months to May, a record high number of vacancies to fill. It means there is stiff competition to get the workers needed.

This precisely matches the number of unemployed jobseekers, in an unprecedented situation, according to data going back two decades. In part this is because the workforce has shrunk, with more people reporting they are long-term sick or have taken early retirement.

Before the pandemic there were around 1.6 jobseekers for every available vacancy, nationally.

In 2015, there were 2.5 workers for every job. A decade ago, there were more than five for every position on offer. It meant bosses were likely to have their pick of candidates.

Yet now, any air travel worker laid off during Covid has plenty of options — without having to go back to the boss who gave them the chop.

Tony Wilson at the Institute for Employment Studies says airlines “were in the eye of the storm” when it came to pandemic disruption, and handled their workforces poorly.

“They made use of furlough, but I am not sure they did enough to keep in touch with staff when they were furloughed, and they were quite quick to lay people off and to try to change their contracts when they came back. With the benefit of hindsight, they probably couldn't have handled it worse,” he says.

In addition, workers are able to choose to shift into a different type of available job.

“Airlines staff won’t have just quite baggage handling and gone to work as accountants, but many will have been able to find better paid and probably more secure and enjoyable jobs which treat them better,” says Wilson, with staff moving from driving and logistics jobs at the terminal to similar positions at supermarkets or in warehouses.

At a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee hearing on Tuesday, experts described a sector suffering from a staffing exodus.

Oliver Richardson, national officer for civil air transport at union Unite, told MPs that aviation “simply isn't as attractive as it was”, arguing workers’ rights were eroded during pandemic-era ‘fire-and-rehire’ sprees.

Danny Brooks from Virtual Human Resources, a consultancy, said many workers had left the sector “for good” to avoid boom-bust cycles, unsociable working hours and high-pressure conditions.

It is proving difficult to persuade workers to return and airline bosses are clearly worried.

Last week Wizz Air boss József Váradi pointed to “distress” at Gatwick airport in air traffic management, airport security and ground handling.

In late May, easyJet’s finance chief Kenton Jarvis said: “there's clearly a labour shortage” in the industry. He anticipated rising costs in “labour-intensive” parts of the sector including ground handling and security, just as the sector is battered by high fuel prices and a weak pound.

Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, says businesses are trying to make conditions and hours more appealing, to tempt those who have left the jobs market over the past two years.

“There are strategies people are pursuing particularly around scheduling, looking to see if they can be a bit more flexible with fewer shifts per week to draw someone back in who has gone semi-retired over the course of the pandemic,” he says.

“Firms can hire, but it is taking a bit more thought about how to do it.”

On top of that comes the more straightforward solution of offering more cash. The REC’s surveys show serious pressure to raise pay offers for new hires.

“In some of these roles, particularly sound baggage and security, pay is one of the big drivers of making the job more attractive,” says Carberry, noting that logistics hubs are often based near airports and are looking for very similar staff to move and handle goods.

“In what you would traditionally call ‘blue collar’ sectors, where the pay rate is hourly and people are towards the lower end of the income distribution, people will trade jobs for £1, £2, £3 per hour, or a better working experience.”

Data from Indeed show job postings in the aviation category have jumped 34pc since May, driven by pilots, aeronautical engineers, aircraft maintenance technicians and flight attendants. There has also been a jump in median wages for baggage handlers – up 9pc so far this quarter to £10.88 an hour.

“We do tend to see aviation jobs picking up at this time of the year, but not to the extent we've seen this year,” says Jack Kennedy at the recruitment site – who calls the pay bump for handlers “eye-watering”.

But with severe shortages and the need to train up workers, the crunch will not be over any time soon.

After the pain of the pandemic, it is evidently a good time to be an airline worker — even if not a traveller.