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£18.6 million and Abta gave a 50% discount on subscriptions for that year in acknowledgment of the pandemic’s impact. But it wrote to members
last week confirming an average increase of 8% in subscriptions from July. The letter from head of membership Danny Waine pointed out this was the first increase in three years and would amount to 4% or less for “three-quarters of members” with no increase in the minimum subscription rate. Larger companies face a
substantial increase although Abta said no rates would increase by more than 10%. Members will pay in two
instalments, with half due on July 1 and half on January 3, before payments revert to the usual schedule next year with the full subscription due in July. Waine reported the Abta
board sanctioned the use of reserves to reduce the subs rise and pointed out: “These figures compare with an overall UK inflation rate of 9% [in May].” However, he warned
membership fees would rise above inflation in the next two years, noting: “Minimum subscriptions will rise in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and subscription levels overall will rise by the same amount . . . it is likely this will be greater than inflation at the time.” Waine noted: “We
considered whether the cost of running the association could be lowered by reducing the amount of services we offer. [But] we consulted members and there is no consensus around any services members would like us to stop providing.”
EasyJet pilots: Our carrier at fault for flights meltdown
EasyJet’s own pilots have suggested the carrier is to blame for cancelling flights at short notice and warned of continuing disruption. The SNPL pilots’ union in
France wrote to easyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren last week warning disruption has yet to peak despite the airline cancelling an
average 75 flights a day over the previous three weeks. The pilots accused the airline
of “unprecedented chaos” and “operational meltdown”, suggesting it had cancelled viable flights while waiting too long to cancel others. Flight data analyst Cirium
reported easyJet was responsible for two-thirds of cancelled UK flights over the Jubilee holiday. An easyJet spokeswoman
blamed a “challenging operating environment resulting in a small proportion of flight cancellations” and pointed out the airline
“continues to operate around 1,700 flights every day”. However, an aviation analyst
said: “It is difficult to understand why there are so many short-notice cancellations [by easyJet]. EasyJet is responsible for its planning.”
‘Government must take some blame for air chaos’
Ian Taylor
Aviation leaders have hit back at the government for blaming airlines for flight cancellations and delays. Luis Gallego, chief executive of
British Airways parent IAG, said the UK government “has to take some accountability” after transport secretary Grant Shapps accused carriers of “poor planning” and “overbooking flights” following disruption over the Platinum Jubilee. Gallego argued: “They said we
overbooked and didn’t forecast demand, but the difficult thing has been to forecast what the government is going to do.” He pointed out UK travel
restrictions “changed 10 or 11 times in a few months” and then the government lifted restrictions “suddenly without any coordination”. Gallego also pointed out: “In
Spain, the furlough scheme lasted right through until March. The British scheme ended in September even before Omicron hit.
44 16 JUNE 2022
we’re seeing operational delays.” The problems are not confined
to the UK. Lufthansa cancelled 900 flights last week, blaming “bottlenecks and staff shortages”. A month earlier, it forecast it would fly more passengers “than ever before” this summer. KLM suspended passenger
Luis Gallego “In Britain, the vaccination
programme was good, but all the changes in policies were a nightmare.” He warned of a “difficult” summer,
saying: “With the problems in the UK, summer is not going to be easy.” Former IAG and British Airways
boss Willie Walsh, now director general of Iata, blamed “government U-turns and policy changes” for “uncertainty until the last minute” about when traffic would return, saying it left “little time to restart an industry that was largely dormant for two years.” Walsh insisted: “It’s no wonder
flights into Amsterdam Schiphol the weekend before last, and Paris Charles de Gaulle was forced to cancel one in four flights last Thursday following a strike at the airport. Aviation data provider OAG
calculated the rate of cancellations in the UK last week at 3%, but put the rate at 4% in Germany and 4% worldwide, with the Netherlands recording a rate of 11%. European air traffic management
body Eurocontrol warned the next few weeks would be “extremely challenging for many airports”. Heathrow chief executive John
Holland-Kaye warned: “It will take 12 to 18 months for the aviation
sector to fully recover capacity.” i Get Social, page 29
travelweekly.co.uk
EasyJet is accused of ‘unprecedented chaos’
PICTURE: Shutterstock/Rebius
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