May 31st - What is Brexit's role in the present travel chaos?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2022
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We need to talk about Brexit – and its role in the present travel chaos. Of course Amsterdam and Dublin airports are seeing long queues, but leaving the EU has subtracted staff from airlines and airports in the UK to an alarming degree.
As I write on 31 May 2022, I note that a year ago we had only just been released from the 19-week international travel ban; Portugal was the only major country on the quarantine-free “green list” (a status it would lose just days later).
The UK aviation industry was crushed, and every time it tried to rise from the wreckage of hopes, dreams and profits the government would come up with another nonsensical rule to discourage travel. Who could forget “amber plus”, the category invented just before the main summer holidays started in July 2021 that had no rational basis whatsoever yet served as an effective ban on travel to France.
I've been roundly heckled for suggesting that leaving the EU is to some extent responsible for the current problems we are seeing . Yet I cannot recall seeing an airline cancelling 10 per cent of its Gatwick schedule because of staff shortage, as easyJet has, nor a holiday company (Tui) axing 30,000 holidays due to insufficient ground handling at Manchester.
Of course this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. You can sign up at independent.co.uk/newsletters.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder and you are very welcome to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on traveling or very sadly today, not traveling for an awful lot of people. |
| 0:14.3 | You can also hear that maybe you can or maybe you can't. I'm in the canteen. It's my lunch break. It's the only time I've got to talk to |
| 0:22.4 | you. One of those days which I really wish didn't happen, not because of me. Obviously I've |
| 0:29.2 | much preferred not to do any work but because it involves thousands of people having their holidays |
| 0:35.7 | messed up. So let me tell you where we are. There are two |
| 0:39.1 | specific problems here on Tuesday, the 31st of May, and they are at Gatwick involving the high |
| 0:46.9 | number of cancellations by EasyJet. We're up to 42 so far, almost all of them pre-notified with a couple of days warning. |
| 0:55.7 | And that means about 6,000 people who've found today they're not travelling where they were hoping to. |
| 1:02.8 | Very brief reminder of your rights because EasyJet won't necessarily be entirely forthcoming with them. |
| 1:09.5 | You're entitled to be flown to your destination on the day of travel. |
| 1:13.2 | And if EasyJet can't get you there, then they have to buy you a ticket on another airline. |
| 1:17.6 | If they can't get you there the same day, they'll be paying for your hotel and your meals. |
| 1:21.4 | And they'll also be paying you cash compensation because these cancellations are squarely |
| 1:26.1 | EasyJet's responsibility. |
| 1:28.3 | The other problem, and this is quite shocking in its magnitude, is the sudden cancellation of almost 200 flights by, would you believe Tui, the biggest holiday company in Britain. |
| 1:42.3 | Now they stress that the cancellations are of their outbound flights. |
| 1:47.8 | So the planes will still be going out to bring people back. |
| 1:51.0 | But it just shows you what an utter, utter mess this is. |
| 1:54.2 | It's entirely happening from Manchester Airport, where it has a huge operation. |
| 2:00.8 | And they are basically saying we're |
| 2:02.6 | canceling 43 flights a week, 199 in total between now and the end of June and that |
| 2:12.6 | amounts to well extraordinary number of people who are not going to be able to get their |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Independent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Independent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.