People flying to their holiday destinations from Eindhoven Airport this year need not fear missing their flights due to staffing problems, says an airport spokesperson. “More security staff is hired to properly handle the summer rush. It will be busy at certain periods. But the turnaround time is expected to be acceptable so travellers will catch their flights.”
Anyone who flew from Eindhoven Airport during the busy holiday months last year will surely remember the long queues. At times, these even stretched well beyond the terminal. Many frustrated passengers missed their flights.
The main reason was a huge shortage of security staff at the airport in times of national labour shortages. As a result, security lanes were often understaffed, just when the Netherlands was going on holiday en masse again after the corona crisis.
But these conditions are a thing of the past, so says a spokesperson following questions from Omroep Brabant.
Sufficient security staff
“We have extra security capacity to handle the summer traffic properly. Compared to the same period last year, we have about 25 percent more security staff hours available for checks,” the Airport spokesperson stated.
This year alone, the security company hired 52 extra people. According to Eindhoven Airport, this will be extended to 75, partly due to higher wages and extra allowances.
Trade union FNV acknowledges that things are better for security staff than before. However, some are concerned about workers who could take sick leave in large numbers. Trade unionist Jaap de Bie: “With experienced staff, the work pressure is high. A lot of new people does not help the speed at which people go through the scanning line.”
Concerns about baggage teams
While security staff have improved, trade unionist De Bie says there are concerns among baggage handlers and platform staff. Their salaries have not increased as much.
Eindhoven Airport says there are still vacancies among the handlers. But according to Viggo, the company that handles this, all teams are now right at full strength. “We have worked hard over the past months to get the staffing in order and we have succeeded,” says a Viggo spokesperson. “We are confident that we can handle the peak times.”
‘Don’t be too early’
Still, holidaymakers may face queues, Eindhoven Airport believes. “It will be busy at certain times. There may be queues in the May and the summer holidays. But the turnaround time is expected to be acceptable so that travellers catch their flights”.
According to this spokesperson, passengers can also do something about the queues themselves. Last year, for instance, many people went to the airport much earlier because they wanted to make sure they caught their flight. This caused even longer queues and people still missed their flight.
Eindhoven Airport therefore advises people to be at the airport 2.5 hours before their flight, and not earlier. Whereas Schiphol now uses time slots for entry, this is not yet the case in Eindhoven.
430 flights
During the two-week May holiday, the airport expects to have around 430 departing flights every week.
Source: Omroep Brabant
Translator: Martijn
