Pinstripe | Airline staffing shortages are a hot topic

Between us we flew Emirates, Qantas, and Singapore Airlines (in no particular order, and some flights were code share).

It’s been so long since I traversed the queues and customs that I had nearly forgotten the regime. Luckily, I was accompanied by my sister who took the reins and supervised a seamless exit albeit with one school-girl error — not taking a carry-on with wheels! Due to the ‘lost luggage’ media scare tactics, we both had over-stuffed our carry-on just in case. At one stage, I lugged both our bags just to even out the weight across both arms, which are now decidedly longer.

The initial excitement for us all was tempered by all those reports of carousel chaos, evaporating luggage, and day long delays. The key finger pointing seemed to be at the lack of staff and long delay times in training new staff.

It has to be acknowledged that we as an industry are in major repair. For many, it is a case of literally starting over with respect to the way we work, how we hire, and how we manage daily regulatory changes and hurdles across government, medical, and aviation arenas. This is tantamount to reinvention with little or no precedent, even given that the nature of business is growth through innovation and change management.

The service standards had notable differences, and this is what my ‘Paris party of five’ experienced:

Delays and check-ins

Carriers one and two had little or no delays exiting Sydney. Check ins were easy with few queues and appropriate staff numbers. Stopover transits were tight, but on time. In Dubai, a jog was required to make a connection.

Carrier two arrived ahead of schedule.

Carrier three experienced a 20+-hour delay. My travel reviewer said “Airline staff did not communicate effectively about the delay and myself the passengers felt left in the dark and very upset. Having paid $4-5k for the flight, I expected much more”.

On-board service

Carrier 1: Exemplary on-board service on par with pre-COVID-19 standards.

Carrier 2: Clinical — none of the chit-chat with cabin crew one is used to on long haul. No additional support for parents with young babies was observed, and often the cabin crew were in a gaggle in the gally ignoring requests for assistance such as onboard entertainment not working.

Carrier 3: The service was nothing like pre-COVID-19 standards. For a full service carrier, the customer care was very poor. The cabin crew were young and appeared inexperienced in their role.

Masks were mandatory for all passengers and announcements were continually made, yet passengers flaunted the requirement throughout the flights.

Baggage services

Most of us tried to include air-tags in our luggage. Suppliers, however, were short of the tags and for two of the five flights, the pre-ordered bag tags did not arrive prior to departure.

Carriers 1: The air tags showed ‘bags are here’ — a good first sign. It did take several hours for the bags to arrive.

Carrier 2: No delays in baggage arrival and two carousels were used to speed up the process.

Carrier 3: The bags took two hours to come out at Heathrow. The volume of bags sitting next to carousels was reported as enormous.

Comfort

Flights were very full. My sister and I flew aboard both the A380 and B777. Are the seats smaller? This question arose as it was impossible to get comfortable, even having paid for additional leg room. We noted that the A380 did not have footrests in economy, which made the first leg (14 hours) excruciating, even with regular jaunts to the bathroom and aisle invasions for bend and stretch routines. We hoped like heck the 777 would have them on the on the way home, but no such luck.

We all arrived, and so did our luggage. That’s a plus.

The experience across our Paris-bound party differed but, demonstrated a negative shift in service standards for the most part.

The contributing factors:

• Staff shortages
• Staff training
• Staff experience levels

No aviation operator in this rebound phase can flip a switch and bring all of these areas up to scratch immediately. We’ve known the industry would rebound on a grand scale, even if the timelines were unclear. The passenger, however, cares about their experience, even when they know about the difficulties. Consumers and passengers will judge — did I get bang for my buck? Do I feel confident in this service provider? Will I trust this provider to deliver next time? Was I treated with care?

Given that there are no quick fixes, the question has to be: what can an operator do with what they have right now? Whether it is the recruitment and employment of staff or liaising with customers/passengers, communication is the key to retention and attraction of both. That is not new.

Communication skills are transferable. Some new hires have developed those skills organically, others have learnt them in previous roles while others, such as entry-level hires, will require training. In fact, anyone new to the aviation industry or airline culture will be experiencing a highly niche environment and will need to be supported to achieve the communication skills and levels required, no matter their experience. How to we support the new hires and the incumbents who face the hard reality of staff shortages every day?

During the pandemic we lost a great many senior staff to retirement and redundancy; an entire brain trust leaving the industry. Perhaps there is a role for those now outside their core careers to consult, mentor, and support those less experienced who are stepping into the void created by the rebound.

There is an army of ex-aviation experts who still retain a passion for the industry. Can we use them? For me and my party, Europe was a blast, but travel was challenging. On top of that, the dreaded lurgy, COVID-19, struck at our core. At least half of us were infected and after avoiding it for two-and-a-half years, I was one of them.