How to Navigate europe's tourism chaos this summer

Like tens of thousands of pieces of luggage stuck at European airports, flight cancellations piled up again this week. In the UK, British Airways has announced that another 10,300 flights scheduled for the summer season will be cancelled.

This results in a total culling volume of almost 30,000 flights between April and October on the British flag carrier, leaving fearful travellers frantically checking the status of their flight and wondering if their trip will be next on the verge. 

Britain has been one of the hardest hit by airport chaos, with last-minute flight cancellations nearly tripling in June compared to the same month in 2019, with even fewer flights operated by airlines, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. 

Other airports in Europe were also affected. Dutch carrier KLM on Friday announced it would cancel 10-20 return flights a day from its main hub in Schiphol, while Deutsche Lufthansa AG is also cutting capacity in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to straighten out its flight schedule.

Since the busy summer period beckons, here are some statistics and strategies to help navigate the madness.

With the latest announcement, BA has disposed of about 13% of its planned capacity this summer. That's more than the 10 percent cut announced in May, and the carrier says the move was necessary to improve resilience as it grapples with a major personnel crisis. 

EasyJet Plc cancels about 10,000 flights out of more than 150,000 in July, August and September.

BA said the latest round of cancellations only affects short-haul flights, so potentially services to Amsterdam, Dublin or Barcelona. It is on such routes that the carrier operates several frequencies per day, which means that flights with low occupancy can be rejected and combined with another departure on a larger aircraft. 

The airline said long-haul flights were not affected by the announcement, though some Twitter users complained that services in New York were affected.

BA says it will contact customers affected by flight cancellations via email or phone, provided the customer has provided contact details. You can also check the status of your flight on the airline's website. 

If your flight is cancelled, BA says it will offer you an alternative flight or allow you to receive a full refund. The airline also recommends that people call their hotline if they can't rebook online. But be careful: some Twitter users complained about the long wait times.

If your flight is cancelled, you must be offered an alternative flight to your destination or a refund, according to consumer protection group Which?. The airline is also required to pay compensation of up to €600 ($609.69) per passenger, although the amount will vary depending on how far in advance you were informed of the cancellation, as well as the length of the flight.

Airlines have some room for manoeuvre as they can still deny claims for compensation, citing extraordinary circumstances in the event of bad weather, political unrest or strikes initiated by airport staff or traffic management. 

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Airlines say they have been hit by a perfect storm: demand for travel is rising, on the one hand, and there are too few people on the ground at airports and plane cabins to handle passengers. Add to that the disruptions from strikes in places like Scandinavia, France, and the United Kingdom, and you have a royal mess. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr has already stated that it is likely that the situation will not become easier in the coming weeks, and that only by the winter schedule will the service be normalized. 

But there is at least some hope on the strike front. The French authorities of the airport managed to prevent a conflict of industrial relations with firefighters, which undermined the service in the Paris hub of Charles de Gaulle. In the UK, unions have also reached a wage agreement with British Airways, breaking the deadlock. 

Currently, some countries are speeding up hiring, and Germany is attracting foreign workers from places like Turkey to help exhausted on-site security personnel. 

"While most travelers should be able to get to the beach this summer, the chaos that has already unfolded is taking off the glitter," said Rachel Humphreys, cirium's communications director. "While only a small percentage of flights have been cancelled, it doesn't take long to disrupt the airline's operations because it is so subtly interconnected."