Airport Staff Shortage: Aviation Fights Long Covid
The Federal Council hangs the lockdown, Switzerland stands still. One of the few who still drives to work in March 2020 is Kenneth Fontana (32), check-in supervisor at Zurich Airport. However, his workplace is deserted, and the entire airport is deserted. Fontana will never forget this moment, as he says. “I still get goosebumps when I think about it.”
Covid-19 has turned aviation inside out more than almost any other industry. Even when a few more planes can take off again, nothing is the same as it used to be. Entry requirements change overnight and still vary from country to country to this day.
“Sometimes the bureaucracy was hard to master,” says Gabriele Pichler (52), who works at the service and information desk. They have printed out countless documents over the past few months. In some cases, however, nothing could be done and she had to explain to people that her plane would take off without her. “Somebody lost their nerve then,” says Pichler.
Her colleague Doris Gasser (60) added: “It’s the most difficult thing when someone is poorly prepared, has no idea and then still blames everyone else.” If a passenger becomes abusive, she always tries to hold up a mirror to those affected. “I hope you see that I’m trying to help you,” she says. “In the vast majority of cases, that helps to get people down again.”
Painful departure of employees
Sascha Zimmermann (44) also observes that people have changed as a result of the pandemic. The terminal manager is often the first point of contact for passengers. However, he has not only presented the last few months negatively: “Many were a bit lost – and if they ask me something, they were more insecure and less demanding than before. Suddenly flying was no longer a matter of course.”
It is also anything but a matter of course if you still have a job in the aviation industry after two years of the pandemic. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs worldwide. In Zurich, Sommer alone put the 550 Swiss employees on the street.
Marco Bötschi (49), who is responsible for the Zurich location for the airport service provider Swissport, now has significantly fewer employees under him than in the past. Before the pandemic, there were 2,100 employees, currently there are 1,600. “Of course, such a decline hurts,” says Bötschi to Sunday’s view. However, he emphasizes that Swissport did not exclude anyone during the entire crisis. “The fact that there were still so many departures was due to the few assignments due to the low volume of flights, the short-time work that has been going on for two years and the fact that the short-time work wages are lower, which particularly affects employees with families.”
According to Bötschi, many Swissport employees who reoriented themselves during the crisis found shelter in sectors that were experiencing a boom because of Corona. For example, with logistics companies that benefit from online trading. The question, however, is whether all of these people will return to aviation when the need arises.
It is trained diligently
The airlines assume that they will return to 70 to 80 percent of the pre-corona level in the coming months. Travel agencies are reporting extremely high booking levels for the summer. In order to cope with this demand, the industry must now quickly increase staff. But that turns out to be more difficult than expected. Marco Bötschi: “We are working hard to find new assumptions. However, it is not easy to find suitable personnel.”
Swissport is therefore training more employees at the same time than ever before. The company is also breaking new ground for this: “We used to train employees directly on the aircraft, but now we have rented a mock-up aircraft, i.e. a demonstration model. In this way, we can train people much faster than during ongoing flight operations.”
Swissport is not alone with the personnel worries. The airlines are also desperately looking for additional crew members. In order to defuse the situation, the Swiss will now even buy vacation days from their employees, as reported by the CH Media newspapers this week. Helvetic is said to even ensnare ski instructors.
Pilots are tough
Despite all efforts, Andreas Wittmer (48), Head of the Aviation Competence Center at the University of St. Gallen, assumes that aviation will not be able to fully meet demand. “We are already seeing a shortage of supply and sharply rising prices on certain routes.” A flight to Central America, for example, cost less than 1,000 francs in 2019, now it sometimes costs more than 2,000 francs.
In the long term, however, Wittmer is not worried about aviation. He only sees lasting problems in the shops. “These are likely to remain at a lower level for a long time and may never reach the pre-corona level again.” The difference between the absolute peaks in the high season and the quieter times in the off-season is likely to increase. “This requires more flexibility in personnel planning,” says the expert.
However, the visit to Zurich Airport shows that aviators are tough. For many, working in aviation is more than just a job. Almost all of them affirm that there is nowhere else they would rather work.
One of them is Janic Widmer (25), a trained bricklayer who has been with Swissport for a few years. In the middle of the pandemic, he completed further training to become a ramp supervisor and is now responsible for the correct loading of the aircraft. He is convinced that this was the right decision: «I’m not afraid that I don’t have any prospects in the aviation industry. As soon as the situation normalizes, people will want to travel again.”
It cannot be seen: Widmer is already fully infected with the flight virus. Let’s hope that it will soon be the only virus circulating at the airport again.