The time we’ve all been waiting for has finally come—the return of travel. However, over a year of travel restrictions and COVID precautions, travel will never be the same. While everyone anticipated that there would be new challenges as the world re-opened, most people did not anticipate that the demand would be greater than the travel industry could support. Between flight cancellations, sky-rocketing hotel prices, the lack of rental cars, and longer hold times, there’s not a single part of the industry that hasn’t been affected by the post-pandemic travel surge.
Airline Labor Shortages
One of the most obvious facets of the industry to face challenges are the airlines. Travel is approaching pre-pandemic levels with around 2 million passengers passing through TSA daily. The demand for travel is more than expected. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have both had to cancel numerous flights because of their labor shortages. An American Airlines representative says, “we made targeted changes with the goal of impacting the fewest number of customers by adjusting flights in markets where we have multiple options for re-accommodation.” However, this still results in about 50-80 flight cancellations a day from American Airlines alone. Most of their cancellations are out of O’Hare or DFW.
Scott Keyes, author of “Take More Vacations,” says that “after airlines added a ton of flights to their summer schedules to meet growing demand, they’re having to make changes based on factors like how many pilots or crew members they have available to work those days.”
The challenges the airlines face is largely a result of understaffing. Unemployment levels are still higher than they were before the pandemic at 5.8% as opposed to 3.5% in February 2020. American Airlines cut 90,000 employees by the end of 2020 and furloughed 30,000. In addition, around 1,000 pilots also accepted early retirement offers. Once pilots accept retire, they don’t return to flying, so the US currently has a pilot shortage. As you can probably imagine, the demand for qualified pilots is high now. However, there are only so many people who are able to fly commercial aircraft.
To avoid long wait times with airlines when your plans go array, Delta recommends using self-service options online or on their app before calling.
Airport Struggles
Labor shortages are not exclusive to the airlines, every part of the travel industry is struggling with the extreme influx in travel. Many airports are encouraging travelers to arrive earlier than normal to their flight as the TSA lines are longer than usual. For example, in Destin, Florida (VPS), one of the X-Ray machines at the security check point broke on June 26th, which resulted in security lines literally going out the door of the airport. People were waiting in line for over three hours and many travelers ended up missing their flights.
Plus, airports are still struggling to deal with all the different COVID tests and requirements. That’s why we recommend bringing a hard copy of your COVID test results and/or vaccine card if you’re traveling internationally.
Unused Tickets and Airline Waivers
With all the craziness surrounding air travel, you can probably imagine what how many unused airline tickets everyone is accumulating and how many different waivers everyone must keep track of. Most organizations had already racked up a large amount of unused tickets during COVID travel restrictions, and now with vouchers expiring and some getting extensions, it’s a lot to keep track of – for airlines, TMCs, and companies alike.
Gant’s TicketRetriever allows users to streamline unused ticket management and achieve up to 98% usage of your organization’s airline vouchers. TicketRetriever does this automatically—which means waiting on hold with your airline for seven hours isn’t necessary anymore. Travel Champions have full visibility of their unused tickets.
Staff Shortages in the Hospitality Industry
Aside from air travel, the hospitality sector is also struggling to get back on its feet after the pandemic. Like the airlines, hotels were forced to lay off employees in 2020 in order to stay afloat. However, now that travel has bounced back, hotels and restaurants are finding it challenging to fill job openings. While the hospitality employment rose by 331,000 in May alone, many businesses are still having trouble finding skilled workers. 187,000 people were hired in food and drink services, 73,000 in amusements, gambling, and recreation centers, and 54,000 in accommodations during the month of May.
Despite all these new hires, many hotels are leaving rooms empty because they don’t have the housekeeping staff to clean them. Sloan Dean, the executive director at Remington Hotels says that “there have been weekends where I’ve had to let rooms go vacant because we didn’t have enough staff to clean them.” Restaurant wait times have skyrocketed as well, since many are unable to serve at full capacity due to staffing shortages, not COVID. In fact, 42% of businesses have job openings that cannot be filled.
There are many factors contributing to the labor shortage in the travel industry. Fears surrounding COVID are making some weary to return to in-person work, along with the lack of childcare options and low wages. Plus, many of the qualified workers who were laid off during COVID have changed career paths to a less turbulent industry, creating a major skills gap as companies need to train new workers. Plus, burnout is more prevalent than ever for those employed in the travel industry as many must work long hours to make up for the labor shortage.
Rental Car Shortages
Like other areas of the travel industry, rental car agencies struggled during COVID-19. In 2020, rental car companies sold approximately 30%-40% of their fleets in order to stay afloat during the pandemic. However, once travel picked up again in 2021, rental car companies were the first to experience difficulties handling the uptick in demand.
Auto production at Ford and GM is almost at a complete standstill right now because of a semi-conductor shortage. The rising cost of cars prevented rental car companies from restocking their supply before the rebound.
As a result, rental car prices have sky-rocketed, and it can be extremely difficult to even get a reservation at all. You can check out our blog to see what you can do to handle the rental car shortage.
Across the board, the travel industry is hurting— though it’s no longer from lack of demand. The post-pandemic travel boom has taken a toll on all sectors of the industry, resulting in longer hold times, lines, and delays. So, while we’re all happy to see travel pick back up, it’s going to take a little bit of time for the industry to get back to its pre-pandemic rhythm.
