The summer air travel debacle has spilled over into absurd territory.
Earlier this week, London's Heathrow took the highly unusual step of telling airlines they need to straight-up stop selling tickets for departing passengers for the rest of the summer. Which we thought was pretty ridiculous. Then CNN Business' Chris Isidore wrote about how one airline is dealing with one aspect of the Heathrow staffing crisis.
Basically, Heathrow doesn't have enough baggage handlers, and that is a huge problem for an international hub of its size. Massive backlogs of luggage are reportedly piling up at baggage claim. The airport said ground handling teams are staffed at 70% of pre-pandemic levels, my colleague Anna Cooban writes.
Anyway, the problem got so bad, that Delta decided to take what it called a "creative" step of flying a passenger jet, sans passengers, to transfer about 1,000 lost bags, from London to Detroit.
Elsewhere inside Heathrow, passengers are finding themselves in human traffic jams long lines as they scramble to get to their gates or jostle for help after their flights are canceled or delayed. Just the thing you want to kick off your first vacation in two years...
Not helping matters, the airlines and airport are engaged in a little blame game about who should have done what to avoid this mess.
Emirates lashed out at Heathrow's leadership in a statement, calling the situation at the airport an "airmageddon" (which, as far as puns go, isn't the worst, but it might be a little over the top).
"Due to their incompetence and non-action, they are pushing the entire burden — of costs and the scramble to sort the mess — to airlines and travelers," Emirates said in a statement.
To that, Heathrow fired back: "For months we have asked airlines to help come up with a plan to solve their resourcing challenges, but no clear plans were forthcoming and with each passing day the problem got worse," a spokesperson told Anna.
Bottom line: The blame game means nothing for the people who're scrambling to get home, or wherever, and who paid top dollar for flights that were ultimately canceled. At this point, I just want someone in Silicon Valley to roll out teleportation so we can be done with airlines and airports for good.
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