MANCHESTER, UK – The three remaining employees at TUI Airways have expressed some concern about recent workload demands as post-pandemic travel ramped quicker than the airline anticipated.
The German owner tourism and airline company, TUI Group, which owns several European airlines, including the British-flagged airline TUI Airways, is reeling from higher-than-anticipated demand for air travel across Europe. Notably, its British operations have been severely impacted.
Despite protestations that pandemic-era cuts would greatly hamper operations on the other side of the pandemic, the leisure company was forced to make some difficult cost-cutting measures including laying off nearly their entire UK staff.
Now the three remaining TUI Airways employees are feeling a little overwhelmed as air traffic has picked up quicker than management anticipated and the airline hasn’t been able to hire staff fast enough to meet the demand.
Jillian Huffnagle, a TUI Airways Gate Agent/Baggage Handler/Mechanic/HR representative briefly spoke with our TTN reporters while lofting luggage onto a conveyor belt. “Yeah, it’s been a little tough lately – overwhelming at times. It’s just me, Timmy and Carlos working right now. They laid everyone else off during the pandemic.”
Huffnagle went on to add, “I had to take an online aircraft maintenance course because we fired all the mechanics except Carlos and he couldn’t keep up. So, now I am adjusting turbine articulators in between interviewing candidates for the 972 job openings we currently have right now.”
With our TTN reporters in tow, the out-of-breath Huffnagle was sweating profusely as she raced to the check-in counter to check in the next 1,095 passengers who had been waiting in line for upwards of 3 days. “Over at TUI Fly Belgium they have 11 employees, so yeah, we are a little jealous. But we are keeping a positive attitude and just happy to have a job.”
The beleaguered airline has been under considerable pressure in recent weeks including canceling hundreds upon hundreds of flights, asking passengers to bring their own food on the plane, fly their own planes, or simply telling them to fly Ryanair. Queues at the airport have stretched into serious affairs, with several customers hiring line-holders to assist in waiting in line for 2 or 3 days at a time.
According to SkyNews, the UK government is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the airlines many of which failed to adequately plan for this debacle.
“We were warning about this, trade unions were warning about this, employee representatives were saying throughout the COVID pandemic, ‘You need a sector-specific package to support the aviation sector’, and now we’re seeing what’s happened because the government hasn’t prepared for what would obviously come next.”
Labour MP James Murray, as quoted in SkyNews
For its part, snarky competitor Ryanair took to its Twitter feed to spit some fire, noting, “That’s what you get…” at the TUI Airways debacle. They also tweeted, “Haha…we have 49 employees and a sick Twitter team, so…#suckit.”
The post you have been reading is…satire
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