The airline industry has been told to lift its game or face similar chaos over Christmas as has already been seen this week.
Sydney Airport – which has had its busiest day in two years – is the epicentre of the chaos.
After the uncertainty and interstate border closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 82,000 people are expected to pass through Sydney’s domestic terminals in just one day.
Customers were forced to wait hours to pass through check-in desks and security.
The last time foot traffic at the domestic terminals reached 80,000 people was March 6, 2020.
Wild scenes are expected to extend over the weekend with another 79,000 people set to file through the airport on Good Friday.
Unions blamed the mistreatment and undervaluing of workers during Covid for long lines experienced by travellers at major airports across Australia.
Transport Workers Union (TWU) national secretary Michael Kaine said if the industry remained in denial about the root cause of the issue, travellers were in for a bumpy ride.
“It is these underlying staff shortages that are the problem, we’ve got to be honest about that as a community because we don’t want to get to Christmas and have the same problem,” he said.
According to the TWU, the dumping of airline workers during the pandemic had left a shortage of skilled labour – which it largely laid at the feet of the Morrison government.
“Australians can thank Scott Morrison and his absent government for being stuck at xjmtzywairports rather than doing Easter egg hunts with kids,” Mr Kaine said.
“For more than two years, the Morrison government gave away billions of taxpayer dollars to airlines with no string attached, while failing to prevent the forced exodus of workers from the aviation sector.
“The Morrison government failed to secure the aviation workforce by denying workers employed by international companies JobKeeper. They’ve left the sector and don’t want to return to casual low paid work with poor conditions.”
Numbers through Sydney Airport are expected to drop on Saturday and Sunday to around 60,000, before picking back up again on Monday.
There were also massive queues at Melbourne and Adelaide airports where similar chaos unfolded on Thursday morning.
Melbourne is expecting foot traffic of 380,000 people over the entire Easter long weekend.
Brisbane airport is also seeing an influx of people, with 56,000 customers expected to walk through the doors on Thursday.
Australians across the country are being told to brace for delays and to arrive at least two hours before their domestic flight.
Melbourne Airport chief executive Lyall Stranby agreed that the key issue behind the delays was in thousands of workers being made redundant during the pandemic.
“Covid-19 decimated airlines and airports and resulted in thousands of highly-skilled workers being stood down or made redundant,” he said.
“The airlines and their suppliers are now scaling up their workforce but given the safety-critical nature of the jobs they do; recruitment and retraining can take time.”
Travellers at Melbourne airport have not only been stuck in long queues to check-in, some have also been forced to wait up to an hour for their luggage.
Sydney Airport chief executive 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 on Wednesday.
“You go back to November last year, and we were all in lockdown, we were operating at one 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.”
Senior staff at Sydney Airport have been told to leave their offices to help manage departure queues.
Retail and IT staff have also been pulled onto the security floor as Covid and the depleted workforce battle with the influx of passengers across the country.
Airport service staff including security workers are now recognised as critical workers in NSW and Victoria.
This means they are exempt from the requirement to isolate for seven days if they are a close contact and without symptoms.
