Chaos threatens at Frankfurt Airport during the summer holidays.

There is a shortage of staff everywhere, the airlines Lufthansa and Eurowings are canceling several hundred flights next month.

Passengers have to be prepared for long waiting times at check-in, security checks and baggage claim and expect flights to be canceled at short notice.

Some planes may even take off without a suitcase.

Before Corona, up to 240,000 passengers were handled at Frankfurt Airport on peak days.

During the pandemic, that number dropped to less than 40,000.

As a result, Fraport cut around 4,000 jobs, primarily in ground handling services.

The private service provider for ground handling services, WISAG, which handles around 20 percent of the aircraft, also laid off some of its staff during the pandemic.

Severe staff shortage

The aviation industry was surprised that air traffic recovered so quickly.

The increase in the number of bookings was just as unexpected as the short-term withdrawal of travel restrictions by politicians.

In May, Frankfurt Airport had almost four times as many passengers as in the same month a year earlier.

The difficulties are not only in Frankfurt, but at almost all German and European commercial airports.

According to surveys by airport works councils, around 5,000 employees are missing at airports nationwide.

The longing to finally be able to visit distant holiday destinations again after two years of extensive isolation is greater than expected.

Apparently, the airport operators were caught off guard, especially since many of the former employees have now reoriented their careers and are no longer available.

Fraport boss Stefan Schulte, who speaks of a "very dynamic upward trend", recently openly named the difficulties at the company's annual general meeting.

“In order to avoid chaos”, the flight schedules are to be straightened out in coordination with the airlines and departures are to be moved from peak traffic times to quieter times.

But even that is only possible to a very limited extent due to the fixed time windows for take-offs and landings, the so-called slots.

In addition, Schulte is mobilizing administrative staff and deploying them in passenger handling.

Even board members want to help out in the clearance during the summer holidays.

Elaborate security regulations

Up to 155,000 passengers currently have to be processed at Frankfurt Airport on peak days, such as the Pentecost weekend.

Fraport and WISAG are desperately trying to hire new staff.

However, the bottleneck cannot be resolved any time soon, as Thomas Richter, chairman of the ground handling employers' association, said in a television interview.

Because of the security-related work at the airport, all employees in the ground handling services have to undergo extensive security checks and also receive special training in handling sensitive luggage such as dangerous goods.

This takes a while.

According to Richter, one or the other plane could take off without luggage in the next few weeks because the airlines are tied to their slots and have to reach their destinations reasonably punctually.

The pilots then cannot wait until the planes are finally loaded, especially since passengers are also booked on connecting flights at the destinations and have to get there on time.

There are indications that aircraft landing in the evening hours cannot initially be unloaded because the existing staff is busy with the departing machines, which have to leave Frankfurt Airport before 11 p.m. due to the ban on night flights.

A Fraport spokeswoman will neither confirm nor deny this.

These are “decisions based on the situation”.

They cause passengers to queue up at the baggage carousel after their arrival and then have to wait a long time for their suitcases.

In the crowds of people, the scramble for the luggage is said to have already resulted in fisticuffs.

Insults to the airport staff are the order of the day, report those affected.