European airline cancels 1,400 summer flights amid pilot shortage
Thousands of UK holidaymaker's summer travel plans are in turmoil after a European airline cancelled 1,400 flights.
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) has axed around 1.5 per cent of its scheduled departures until October 2025.
According to air passenger rights company AirAdvisor, as many as 50,000 UK passengers will be affected by the flight cancellations, including those with connecting and indirect itineraries.
AirAdvisor estimates that between 10 and 15 flights will be impacted daily, with UK to Switzerland routes out of Heathrow, London City, Manchester and Edinburgh representing up to 12 per cent of cancellations.
It added that SWISS's cancellations will impact competitor airlines such as British Airways and easyJet as demand increases on short-haul routes to Zurich and Geneva.
Long-haul passengers bound for Shanghai and Chicago will also be impacted by the cancellations this summer.
Anton Radchenko, founder of AirAdvisor, said: 'With this latest wave of SWISS cancellations, summer just got more complicated for UK travellers. We're not seeing a demand problem but a staffing and scheduling bottleneck.
'Flights are getting axed not because people aren't flying, but because airlines don't have enough fully trained pilots to operate them.'
Pilot shortages particularly affect crews on A320, A321, A330, and A340 aircraft, reports Aviation24.
Travellers due to fly on the cancelled SWISS journeys are entitled to a full refund and free rerouting under EU261 regulation.
SWISS said: 'We regret that we are unable to offer the affected connections as originally planned. In such cases, we inform the affected customers as early as possible.
'Schedule adjustments are made as far in advance as possible to minimise inconvenience and to find the best possible alternative travel solutions for our passengers', in a statement to
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
19 minutes ago
- Times
Man Group orders 150 staff back to London office
The world's biggest listed hedge fund group has ordered about 150 of its London-based staff back to the office five days a week as it wrestles with the faltering performance of its main computer-driven investment business. Man Group said that its employees in the City who work at its AHL division had been asked to attend its premises full-time for a three-month period 'to support an 'all hands on deck' cross-team research project'. AHL is behind Man's core quantitative investment programs, which have been wrongfooted by violent moves in financial markets in recent months driven by abrupt changes in trade policy pursued by President Trump since his return to the White House in January. AHL's main investment strategy is down about 10 per cent so far this year and also only eked out a 3.19 per cent gain in 2024. • The 'super-prime' offices designed to lure WFH staff back in Man Group, which is a member of the FTSE 250, manages about $172.6 billion of assets and is one of the biggest names in the hedge fund industry. The London-based company has about 1,700 staff in offices around the world, including in New York, Shanghai and Sydney, and operates a flexible working policy under which employees typically come into the office three days a week. The edict for some workers to temporarily come in full-time, which was first reported by the Financial Times, applies to mainly quantitative analysts and spans May to July. A spokeswoman said: 'While these cross-team initiatives are infrequent, experience has shown that a period of highly focused, in-person collaboration allows significant research progress to be made in a relatively short amount of time. The firm's broader agile working policy remains unchanged.' It adds to a broader push in the financial services industry and beyond to cut down on hybrid working, which has become much more widespread since the Covid pandemic lockdowns forced most office staff into remote working. Staff at JPMorgan Chase, which is America's biggest bank and has a significant business in Britain, have been required to come in five days a week since March, while Amazon has expected the same since the start of the year.
Reuters
20 minutes ago
- Reuters
UK's Thames Water set for over $13.5 billion rescue deal by Silver Point and Elliott, Bloomberg News reports
June 6 (Reuters) - U.S. investment firms Silver Point Capital and Elliott Management are formulating a 10-billion-pound-plus ($13.53 billion) rescue package for Britain's Thames Water, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal will comprise a major debt overhaul, including a multi-billion-pound haircut for senior creditors, in addition to reductions already expected for junior Class B bonds, loans and around 3 billion pounds in holding company debt, the report said. The rescue package will provide an equity boost of between 3 billion pounds and 4 billion pounds to stabilize the utility's finances, according to the report. "The Creditors have submitted a detailed long-term turnaround plan that will fix the root causes of Thames Water's problems, restore its balance sheet, rebuild customer trust and fix the fundamentals of the business once and for all," a spokesperson for the creditors, which include Silver Point Capital and Elliott, said in an emailed statement to Reuters. Thames Water did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thames Water suffered a major setback on Tuesday in its fight to avoid nationalisation, as it said U.S. private equity firm KKR (KKR.N), opens new tab had pulled out of a multi-billion-pound rescue plan. Britain's biggest water supplier is at the centre of a public backlash against the privatised water sector, which has been blamed for polluting Britain's rivers and seas while hiking bills and prioritising dividend payouts over infrastructure investment. ($1 = 0.7393 pounds)
Telegraph
22 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Farage ‘seeks less powerful chairman' after Yusuf quits
Nigel Farage is considering appointing a less powerful Reform UK chairman after the sudden departure of Zia Yusuf, The Telegraph understands. Senior party figures have discussed splitting the role into several positions when Mr Yusuf is replaced, following his dramatic resignation on Thursday. Reform sources told The Telegraph that the former chairman had 'rubbed some people up the wrong way', and that a key factor in his departure was high workload. 'He was on a mission, working 18 hours a day,' said one source. 'He was doing it all unpaid, and he expected everyone else to work equally hard.' Mr Farage and the party's officials are working out how to replace the 38-year-old businessman, who said he no longer thought it was 'a good use of his time' to work on getting Reform into government. It came after an apparent dispute between Mr Yusuf and other senior figures over whether the party should campaign to ban the burka, which was suggested by the newest Reform MP Sarah Pochin at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. Mr Yusuf said later it was 'dumb' to suggest policies Reform did not support, but Lee Anderson, the Reform chief whip, said he backed a ban. Mr Farage and Richard Tice, the deputy leader, both said they thought there should be a 'debate' on face coverings, including burkas, in the UK. One party source said Mr Yusuf was 'unpopular' with other members of staff, and had become 'super stretched' in managing the day-to-day running of Reform and the party's new ' Doge ' efficiency drive in the ten councils it won in last month's local elections. That workload led him to become 'authoritarian' and a 'control freak', said another figure close to Reform. Mr Farage said on Thursday that Mr Yusuf brought a 'bit of a Goldman Sachs mentality' to the role, which others said was a coded reference to his high-pressure management style. But the Reform leader also said he was 'sad' his chairman was leaving, and that he had only ten minutes' notice that he intended to resign. The tipping point for Mr Yusuf came on Wednesday, when he learned of Ms Pochin's question about burkas to Sir Keir Starmer from reading about it online. Mr Yusuf, who is a Muslim, had been receiving abuse from far-Right trolls online, which Mr Farage said had become difficult for him to bear. He had also reportedly become frustrated that another staff member had taken control of the party's operations, and felt he had been isolated from conversations about policy. He said on Thursday: '11 months ago I became Chairman of Reform. I've worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30 per cent, quadrupled its membership and delivered historic electoral results. I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.' Multiple sources said Mr Yusuf had performed well in the job, but was not a popular figure within the team. 'He didn't do what a chairman is meant to do, which is to bring people in and bring them along with you,' said one Reform source, adding: 'He isolated a lot of the staff.' Another added: 'Everyone is very sad about it. He wasn't popular with the staff, but he did a good job in the role. It all happened very suddenly – he'd had enough.' The next chairman may be given a more traditional figurehead role within the party, rather than running its expansion, elections and financial affairs as Mr Yusuf did. Mr Farage could appoint a chief executive alongside a new chairman, using funds raised by Nick Candy, the Reform treasurer. Upcoming donations returns are expected to show that the party raised more than £2.5 million in the first quarter of this year – putting Reform in contention to be the biggest fundraiser among the Westminster parties. Both the Conservatives and Labour have suffered a cash crunch since last year's election, and have laid off staff members. Early contenders to replace Mr Yusuf include Andy Wigmore and Arron Banks, the ' bad boys of Brexit ' who worked with Mr Farage on the campaign in 2016. One figure close to the party said Mr Farage could approach Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative MP and MEP who stood for Reform at the 2019 election. Ms Widdecombe, who said last month she disagreed with Reform's policy to expand access to the winter fuel allowance, told The Telegraph she had not been approached about the job. Mr Yusuf's departure is the latest in a series of internal disputes within Reform, including a public row between the chairman and Rupert Lowe, who was elected for the party last year but has since been ejected. Mr Yusuf did not respond to a request for comment.
