The Sunday Times June 5, 2022 13
NEWS
reduction in capacity from
12,200 to 8,610 passengers
departing every hour in the
evenings.
It has asked for cuts of
1,200 passengers an hour at
Terminal 5 from 5am to 6pm
and imposed other limits
during other times of day.
The curbs, which started to
come into force last month,
will apply to all airlines using
Heathrow, with details to be
decided by the Heathrow slot
committee. Flights will be
withdrawn, and the cut in
capacity is also likely to push
up prices, deterring some
passengers from bookings.
Mark Powell, Heathrow’s
director of operational
planning, has invoked powers
created in the wake of a
previous crisis, the 2010
halting of much of Europe’s
air traffic in response to the
eruption of the
Eyjafjallajokull volcano in
Iceland. At the time it was the
largest shutdown of airspace
since the Second World War.
The decision to cut
capacity represents an
admission that the aviation
industry will not be able to
resolve its staffing shortages
for at least the next month,
even though the volume of air
traffic is still far lower than
pre-pandemic. The air traffic
control group NATS said
Britain is operating at 75 per
cent of 2019 levels.
Shapps, who last week
held a crisis meeting with theaviation industry, rebuked
some airlines for adding to
the chaos by “overbooking
flights that they cannot
service”. Queues at Bristol
airport were so long that they
stretched out of the terminal
and into the car parks.
This weekend there were
fresh grounds for concern
that the industry will still not
be ready by the time schools
break up for the summer
holidays on July 22.
Two of the country’s main
carriers are scaling back their
flight schedules for July fromthe more ambitious plans
they set out in April and May,
after the removal of the UK’s
Covid-19 international travel
restrictions on March 18.
These curbs, separate from
Heathrow’s, are caused by
factors including a shortage
of flight crew.
British Airways has cut
1,505 UK departures from its
July schedule, or almost 10
per cent of the 15,472 flights it
announced in April,
according to research by
Cirium, an aviation analytics
company.EasyJet, which added to its
July schedule as recently as
four weeks ago, has cut the
number of UK departures by
423, from 17,981.
Paul Charles, chief
executive of the PC Agency, a
travel consultancy, said:
“Heathrow is sending out a
message that disruption is
expected to continue until
early July. Second, it is
admitting that it won’t be
hiring enough people to solve
the problem. Third, if
Heathrow is doing this then
it’s likely that other airportswill follow, because other
airports are worse affected.”
He said holidaymakers
would face disruption for at
least another month.
“There will be more
cancellations because the
shortage of staff is not going
to be resolved.”
A spokesman for Heathrow
declined to comment.
Sources say Manchester
Airports Group, which owns
Stansted, East Midlands and
Manchester airports, has no
plans to follow suit.
@NicholasHellenThousands of passengers a
day are to be prevented from
booking flights out of
Heathrow until at least next
month as Britain’s biggest
airport takes drastic action to
tackle the overcrowding and
cancellations that have
brought misery to
holidaymakers.
Heathrow has ordered
airlines to cut by a third the
number of passengers flying
from its terminals at certain
times of the day until July 3,
warning: “Without a
reduction in demand, the
operation would not be
considered safe.”
Last week half-term
holidaymakers were caught
up in chaotic queues and
subjected to last-minute
cancellations as much of the
aviation sector failed to cope
with a surge in numbers.
Grant Shapps, the
transport secretary, and the
aviation sector have blamed
each other for the problems.
Job cuts among baggage
handlers and check-in staff
during two years of pandemic
restrictions hollowed out the
workforce, and recruitment
has been hampered by low
pay and antisocial hours.
Heathrow’s management
blamed delays at check-in for
“dangerous levels of
congestion or crowding” and
applied for a temporary
Nicholas Hellen
Transport Editor
Heathrow, along
with other
airports, has
struggled to
cope with
passengers over
half-termIf you’ve never had to catch a
flight from Manchester
airport, you could be
forgiven for thinking the
apocalyptic scenes in the
check-in hall stem from very
particular circumstances,
writes Angela Epstein.
There is an agreed
narrative: Covid catalysed
this appalling show; there
were knee-jerk redundancies
and airlines were ill-prepared
for the bounce-back after
restrictions were lifted. Thencame that Grant Shapps
grenade aimed at firms
overestimating their ability
to sell flights and holidays.
Yet this storyline obscures
a fundamental truth. Long
before the pandemic,
travelling from Manchester
amounted, at times, to little
more than an exercise in
ritual humiliation.
I use the airport up to
eight times a year. And what
has become clear in recent
years is that management orcontractors appear
uninterested in any kind of
decent passenger
experience. The situation is
reflected in some pretty
dismal data.
A 2019 Which? report
found that passengers faced
the longest average security
queue time at a large UK
airport — 16 minutes. In
2018, they were found to be
the unhappiest of any main
airport about security
screening.Passengers’ reservoir of
goodwill and optimism
begins to drain at the drop-
off outside the terminals (£
for five minutes). Once
inside, the disproportionate
space-to-check-in-desk ratio
creates stamina-testing
queues. As does a lack of
staff for the automated
luggage machines. More
misery awaits during the trek
through security, where
passengers snake
wretchedly around barriers.Manchester airport should
be a source of pride for this
part of the country. As one of
the busiest hubs in the UK, it
gives the aspirant north of
England a chance to become
a global player.
That’s why management
must recognise that more
needs to be done than
simply firefight the Covid
failings. Those of us booked
to fly out of Manchester this
summer face the prospect
with cold dread.FLYING FROM
MANCHESTER:
AN EXERCISE
IN RITUAL
HUMILIATIONyou another airline. If you
have been delayed for more
than five hours and no longer
wish to travel you are entitled
to a refund.
What can passengers do to
avoid delays at check-in?
The GMB union, which
represents baggage handlers,
has advised travellers to
minimise disruption by
taking only hand luggage, and
not checking anything in. But
Jonathan Hinkles, chief
executive of Loganair, said:
“If every customer takes their
worldly possessions as hand
baggage through airport
security that has just created
another huge pressure point.”
Are passengers in Europe
also suffering disruption?
Queues at Amsterdam
Schiphol airport stretched
into the street. In Sweden the
head of the airport operator
Swedavia was summoned to
answer questions in
parliament about long
queues at Stockholm airport.
Staff shortages in Dublin led
to more than a thousand
passengers missing flights.Will I receive compensation
if Heathrow has requested
an airline cancel a flight or a
proportion of its flights?
Not necessarily. The Civil
Aviation Authority (CAA) says
that it may classify such
cancellations as an
extraordinary circumstance.
If the airport does not give
airlines sufficient advance
notice they are not required
to pay. The CAA decided
passengers would lose out
when Heathrow cancelled
some flights for a single day
on March 30 because of
understaffing, but has not
issued guidance concerning
the restrictions imposed by
Heathrow until July 3.
In what circumstances am
I entitled to compensation?
You may be entitled if your
flight arrives more than three
hours late at its destination.
No payment will be made if it
is not the airline’s fault and
the disruption was caused by
extreme weather, air traffic
control strikes or other
extraordinary circumstances.
How much compensation
am I entitled to?
For flights of under 1,500km
the maximum is £220, rising
to £350 for medium-haul of
up to 3,500km (for example,
to Marrakech) and £520 for
flights of more than 3,500km
(for example, New York).
If the airline cancels my
flight, must it arrange an
alternative?
You are entitled to be
rebooked on another flight on
the same day. If your airline
has no seat on one of its own
flights, it has a duty to findNicholas Hellen3
Minimum number of
hours late a flight must
arrive for compensation
to be paidCARL COURT/GETTY IMAGESHeathrow orders airlines to ditch a third of passengers
What are your rights
when flights are
delayed or cancelled?
NEWS REVIEW
Sheryl Sandberg’s
legacy, page 24amount of money, it’s hard to make it
work — and NHS jobs aren’t that well
paid either.”
When her daughter is old enough for
school, Jennings, from an affluent part of
Surrey, hopes to return to work, but wor-
ries about the impact her career break
will have had. “It’s quite common now,
having to stop work to raise your children
and then start your career again. But if
you take a break for five years it doesn’t
look particularly good.`’
For years, the number of “economi-
cally inactive” women had fallen, as
working women closed the gap on men.
Yet in the past few months, that trend has
stalled. It leaves 25 per cent of women
aged 16 to 64 not seeking work, com-
pared with 17.7 per cent of men.
About 28.5 per cent of economically
inactive women are not working in order
to look after home or the family, com-
pared with 6.9 per cent of men. More
alarmingly, the number of women not
working to look after family has risen
5 per cent in the past year, the first sus-
tained increase in at least 30 years.
Some say the trend is the result of a
pandemic realignment in working pat-
terns. Yet it is more pronounced among
women aged 25 to 34, where the number
of women not working has jumped 13 per
cent in the past 12 months.
The cost of a full-time nursery place forWhen Jenna Jennings had her daughter,
she expected to be back at work as a GP’s
receptionist in no time. After all, her
mother was able to continue working
night shifts soon after Jenna was born,
33 years ago.
Then the cost of childcare dawned:
£65 a day to take care of her daughter
from 10am to 4pm, which did not even
cover her full shift.
“I haven’t worked since December
because there’s nothing that will pay
more than nursery,” Jennings said. “I
stayed at work for about five months, but
in the end I was barely breaking even.
Nursery came to about £1,200 a month.
Unless you’re earning a substantial
Tom Calver Data Projects Editor
children under two has risen from £236 a
week in 2018, to £274 in 2022 — a jump of
16 per cent. As spiralling childcare costs
threaten to halt decades of progress, is it
becoming too expensive for mothers to
work?
None of this surprises Joeli Brearley,
who founded the charity Pregnant Then
Screwed in 2015 after being sacked two
days after telling her employer she was
pregnant. A 2020 survey from the group
found that more than a third of mothers
who returned to work made a financial
loss or only broke even, thanks to child-
care costs.
Why are childcare pressures becoming
more acute? The cost of living crisis has
an impact,” says Brearley. “You can
understand why people are saying that
things just don’t add up anymore.” Her
latest survey of almost 27,000 parents
with the website Mumsnet found 62 per
cent of parents said their childcare costs
were the same as their rent or mortgage.
One in four parents were now having to
cut down on food, heating or clothing to
afford childcare.
“On top of childcare, you’ve got flexi-
ble working issues. Employers have been
fairly lenient with working from home —
but they’re often ignoring other types of
flexi working, like reduced hours or part-
time, because they think they’ve done
enough.”
For women with two young children,
childcare costs can be greater than com-
fortable salaries.
Karen Gosling, from Stoke Newington,
northeast London, was head of English atHeld back: the mothers who
can’t afford to return
to work
a private school. Her salary was £50,
a year, or about £37,000 after tax. “A nur-
sery for two children would have cost
£44,000,” she said.
“We looked at childminders, but even
then, I’d have been doing a very stressful
job for a profit of about £200 a month.
[Not working] was a no-brainer.
“Inflexibility was a huge issue too — I
wasn’t able to change my hours. I tried to
make the case that I was working in a
girl’s school and we needed to show girls
that it is possible to come back to work
after having a baby.
“Sadly, so many teachers fall pregnant
and don’t come back.”
The 37-year-old is not just worried
about her career. “Time passes much
faster when you get older. I’m not paying
into a pension, I’m still paying off my stu-
dent debt. That stresses me out.”
Many jobs remain inflexible, even after
post-pandemic revolutions in the work-
place. One mother, who only gave her
first name, Cat, said her son was about
five months old when she went back to
work as a receptionist, hoping to use it to
fund her work as an actor.
“My working hours were 8am to 6pm,
and that couldn’t be changed at all,” said
the 30-year-old from south Manchester.
“Nurseries generally work 8am to 4pm. I
was paying at least £140 a week on child-
care, and I’d have to pay even more for
early-drop off.
“It feels a bit weird not going back to
work. A lot of my mum friends have gone
back part-time, but they’re much higher
earning than me — and have family close
by that can take the baby for a few days.
“It’ll definitely impact my career, espe-
cially my theatre work. If you’re not in it,
people forget about you.”
Taking time out for childcare does not
just hurt women’s careers — there is a
knock-on effect. “It leaves a gap of
women in the middle rungs who would
not be there to support women starting
out,” says Brearley.
“Also, when mothers return after
maternity leave, they turn to other moth-
ers to help them navigate that return, to
be a sounding board. If mothers are leav-
ing the workplace, there’s a potential
domino effect.”
The financial challenge is greater for
single parents. Gingerbread, a charity
supporting single mothers, is frequently
hearing from women unable to work in
the jobs they are qualified for. Nearly 75
per cent of single parents are on universal
credit, says its chief executive Victoria
Benson. The scheme gives working fami-lies up to £646 per child a month in child-
care costs, which does not cover the cost
in many areas. “Universal credit reim-
burses childcare costs calculated on the
basis of 2005 costs, so that while the cost
of childcare has clearly hugely increased
since then, the amount that is reim-
bursed hasn’t... It also does not pay the
upfront cost of childcare,” says Benson.
“This means that single parents need
to find the costs of childcare, for example
their nursery fees, before they receive
their first monthly salary payment.”
Shelley Chatham was an assistant
manager at a pub in Solihull, and was 16
weeks pregnant when the first lockdown
was announced. Nine months after her
boy was born, she prepared to go back to
work. Her partner is a chef.
“We realised that our income would be
higher if I was on universal credit than if
we both went back to work and paid
childcare,” says the 30-year-old.
“Being in hospitality, there aren’t
many jobs that would let me get off in
time to pick up my children from school.
And I’d also have to be working week-
ends.
“I do miss work. I love being able to be
at home with my son, but I think some
time apart will be good for us. As a baby
born in the pandemic, it took him a while
to get used to socialising.”
Could male partners take up more of
the slack? Most women still make less
money than men, points out Brearley,
meaning that in a couple if one parent
feels the need to stop working, it often
makes financial sense for it to be the
woman.
A better approach, she says, is to
reform childcare so neither parent has to
stop work. Net childcare costs represent
about 29 per cent of income, making Brit-
ain one of the most expensive countries
in the world to raise children.
Parents in Britain can apply for 30
hours of free childcare a week from when
there child is three until they start school,
if they are in work and meet certain crite-
ria — yet critics say shortfalls in funding
from local authorities mean many are not
able to take up the offer. Some low-in-
come households also get free childcare
for two-year-olds, yet middle-income
households miss out.
Parents in Canada have been offered
early learning and child care spaces for
an average of $10 (£6.33) a day for chil-
dren under the age of six. Studies there
showed that every dollar invested in
childcare generated between $1.50 and
$2.80 in return for the economy.
Back in Britain, the government at
least acknowledges the problem. In the
2021 autumn budget, Rishi Sunak
announced a £300 million support pack-
age, Start for Life, which will establish 75
family hubs where parents can access
services in one location. Yet critics have
labelled it a “token gesture”.
Jennings knows enough of her friends
are in the same boat that something
needs to be done but says: “Anything to
do with women takes a huge amount of
time to make any real progress.”
@TomHCalver£
Weekly cost of a nursery
place for a child under two£44,
Annual cost of sending two children
to a daytime nursery in LondonBritain’s rising childcare costs
are forcing an increasing
number of young women to go
missing from the workforce