Air traffic decreased drastically during the pandemic and personnel both on the ground and in the air became unemployed.

How the personnel issue was handled has contributed to the consequences we see today with long queues at Arlanda and at other airports around Europe.

- Instead of being forced to lay off employees, there have been arrangements for them to be able to receive a salary through redundancy.

We have been able to get people back to work faster because they have not stopped working in the business, says Stine Westby at Avinor, Norway's equivalent of Swedavia.

This means that the staff who have been laid off and who are now returning to work are already classified and have sufficient staff in the security checks.

Stine Westby does not think there will be long queues during the summer:

- No I do not think so.

We have tested the methodology we set up during the Easter traffic and during two long weekends in May.

And all three days have had high travel numbers at levels that we track for the summer.

Different regulations

The authorities' register check of staff is something that has been stated as a factor in the fact that it takes time to get more staff into Arlanda, where the company Avarn handles the security control.

- We are of course self-critical and look at what we could have done differently.

What we misjudged was very much the authorities' processing times and how many candidates we lost along the way, says Lena Johansson, regional manager at Avarn.

- We expanded our recruitment but it has unfortunately not been enough.

Security company: "Self-critical"

Both staff who are recruited and those who are newly hired must be safety tested by Swedish authorities.

Avarn is now testing to offer employment directly after its own security check - then staff can work as service hosts in the terminal until they are fully approved by the authorities.

- Had there been similar rules as in Norway where the state went in and took full responsibility, it would have given us completely different opportunities to retain more of our employees.

This is the big explanation for the difference between Norway and Sweden, the regulations looked completely different, says Lena Johansson.

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This is how Oslo's Gardermoen Airport has kept the queues down - hear Stine Westby, airport director at Avinor, in the clip.

Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB