Travellers are being warned delays at airports across the country are set to continue, as the chaos at Sydney Airport enters its sixth day.
A mix of staff shortages and Australians returning to airports over the Easter and school holiday period have caused mayhem at the domestic terminals, with people having to wait hours to check-in.
While the chaos has shocked travellers used to mostly empty terminals, they aren’t set to disappear due to the stretched staffing system leading to lengthy delays, problems checking in and cancelled or missed flights.
Thursday is set to be the busiest day for domestic travel since the pandemic began with 80,000 people expected to travel interstate for the Easter long weekend.
Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert said it has been challenging for everyone involved, including passengers.
“We’ve got staff shortages, we’ve been rebuilding the business from the ground up,” Mr Culbert told 2GB’s Chris Smith.
“You go back to November last year, and we were all in lockdown, we were operating at 1 per cent of normal capacity and we all started recruiting for Easter back in December last year, right when we got a sense of the borders were going to open but we just haven’t been able to get enough staff.
“Then you add on top of that the Covid issues, on any given day up to 20 per cent of staff can’t come to work due to Covid. So we’re running at 60 per cent of ordinary staff capacity.”
Mr Culbert said Thursday is expected to be the worst day yet, with 80,000 passengers expected at Sydney Airport.
The numbers are similar to those on the first day of the school holidays, with Mr Culbert urging customers to get to the airport as early as possible.
Mr Culbert said suggestions passengers were “rusty” about travelling was only a small contributing factor to the chaos.
“It was one factor, but it’s a very small factor … no one is blaming the passengers, the primary reason here is the staff shortages,” he said.
Security officers are now being offered incentives with $50 gift cards to help out over the next two weeks, while pilots are being begged to staff flights.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard worked quickly to include airport workers and security guards on the critical list of employees who can still work if they are close contacts.
NSW Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres said the queues are “intensely disappointing”, but Covid is still impacting the workforce across Australia.
“While airport workers have been given an exemption for the close contact isolation arrangements, it may take some time for rosters to recalibrate,” he said.
Qantas travellers departing from Sydney and Canberra Airport on Wednesday were met with empty airports after they were told to arrive two hours early, but no staff were anywhere to be seen.
One traveller posted to Twitter saying they arrived at 4.30am, two hours before their flight, to discover no staff.
The issues the airport was already dealing with were exacerbated when a Qantas luggage belt broke down, causing further frustrations for customers.
The advice to customers from Sydney and Melbourne airports and Qantas has been to arrive two hours before a domestic flight to ensure they catch their plane on time.
