What is behind the disruption at UK airports?

theguardian.com:

With the Easter break now under way, passengers at UK airports have been facing severe disruption to their plans, with long delays and hundreds of flights cancelled. Why has this been happening and what can be done?

In brief, Covid-19. The relatively sudden lifting of UK pandemic restrictions has resulted in soaring demand for travel, after two years when the coronavirus testing and “traffic light” regime had made holidays either impossible or an expensive risk. This has been accompanied by a huge increase in Covid cases across the UK, to which aviation staff are obviously not immune.

Out of the airlines, easyJet seems to be suffering most, with Covid having infected large numbers of crew at its Gatwick base in particular. British Airways has only cancelled a few flights because of sickness.

Sickness rates have contributed to problems for some airports – but airports such as Manchester are mainly struggling to recruit staff quickly enough to meet demand for the busiest Easter getaway since 2019.

Passengers at Manchester already faced hours of queues for check-in, security, and baggage reclaim even before Easter, and it looks unlikely to be resolved soon. In common with most airports, airlines and aviation suppliers (such as baggage handlers or security firms), its staff were largely furloughed, and hundreds were laid off during the pandemic, when leisure travel was all but stopped for long periods. But Manchester appears to have been less prepared than airports such as Gatwick, which reopened its second terminal smoothly last week.

Heathrow, too, says it will need another 1,000 staff for summer. Recruitment is less easy than airports may have hoped: workers are in demand across other sectors, with big incentives for trainee