There has to be some governmental intervention in this. They cannot carry on in this fashion and cause hardships to thousands every week.
The airline knows fully that they cannot cater for backlogs, staff absences and time constraints and handling delays. Yet they expand their services knowing fully well that there will be problems.
Their profits rise as they put huge hurdles in the compensation process and make it a lengthy nline process so passengers lose interest. This is a type of organised corporate bullying the likes of which were unheard of a decade ago in the tourism industry.
There has to be some governmental intervention. Or do they love all the taxes going into the exchequer.
I read on another message board over the weekend someone writing in connection with the Ryanair cancellations at STN who said in effect that if people book at cheap prices with the likes of Ryanair they know what they are letting themselves in for if flights are cancelled. I think the advice was to pay a bit more and go with a 'proper' airline. I've read similar comments by readers in the Bristol Post when easyJet problems have been highlighted.
Yet British Airways (in the form of BACF) cancelled the BRS-FLR sector on Saturday (and presumably the FLR-STN sector which I assume the aircraft would have flown after BRS-FLR had that operated). A lot of people would regard BA as a 'proper' airline yet they can have their problems too.
Now I fully agree with you that no airline should be regularly cancelling flights unless it's for something beyond their control. Until this century it was unheard of for regional airports like Bristol to have the sort of network they enjoy now. Even in the 1990s I'd often speak to a fellow passenger who had never flown before. That rarely happens these days. My four grandchildren (all in the 18-21 age group) have all flown in aircraft on more occasions than they've used a bus. Their parents always had cars and now so do they. Flying has become so commonplace that there are many people who fly but don't travel by bus.
The low cost business model is predicated on the supermarket pile' em high and sell' em cheap - well relatively cheap, at least compared with fares in pre-low cost airline days. The downside is that there is no slack in the system when delays occur.
I don't fly anything like as often as I once did. I no longer enjoy the experience - it's a hassle. When my wife and I flew from BRS to DUB last month I was alive to the possibility of Ryanair cancelling the flight. I'd made a list of alternative airlines, airports and trains to reach such airports in case we arrived at BRS to find a cancelled flight. Now DUB is relatively simple to find an alternative - it would be inconvenient - but many overseas destinations are not capable of finding another way of getting there if the flight is cancelled.
I don't know what responsibility, if any, the CAA has with the continuing and seemingly growing list of cancellations which, in fairness to the airlines, are often the result of external action such as overseas industrial action.
