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Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport said it will compensate passengers who missed flights due to huge queues in a chaotic summer at one of Europe’s busiest hubs. online news
Like several others in Europe, the Dutch airport has experienced major disruption in recent months because of staff shortages as the airline industry recovers from the Covid pandemic.
“A lot of people have really been looking forward to their holidays abroad, especially after two years of Covid. We’re extremely sorry that some people have missed their flight due to the long security control queue,” Schiphol CEO Dick Benschop said.
“They’ve had to miss out on all or part of their holiday, and we really sympathise with them… During these special times and circumstances, we must not let these people fall through the cracks,” he said in a statement late Thursday.
The compensation scheme, worked out in consultation with a Dutch consumer group, will refund costs incurred by people who missed flights between April 23 and August 11, Schiphol said.
Costs include rebooking or finding replacement flights, or for alternative transportation, and for accommodation costs near Schiphol.
Affected travellers have until September 30 to lodge a claim.
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Passengers travelling through Schiphol have reported failing to catch flights after being stuck in hours-long queues that have snaked outside terminal buildings.
Schiphol has been capping passenger numbers since July and says it will continue until at least October in a bid to ease the queues, saying that “virtually all parties at the airport are understaffed.”
While it expects numbers to dip slightly after August, it said there was a “seasonal effect” when travellers used more trays at security in colder months because they wear more clothes such as coats, making waiting times longer.
Several European airports including London Heathrow and France’s Charles de Gaulle have struggled to cope with passenger flows as post-pandemic travel picks up.
The aviation industry is scrambling to fill jobs after cutting thousands of positions during the pandemic.
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Notes from APS Radio News
In a number of instances flight personnel, including airline pilots resigned when they had been coerced to take the mRNA vaccine
As well, during the past few years, lockdowns had the effect of closing many small and medium-sized businesses.
For example, in the US, for example, by October 2020, over 100,000 businesses had closed, many permanently as a result of lockdowns.
The combination of massive infusions of money into the economy, and substantially increased programs of quantitative easing, and lockdowns had the effect of creating shortages of various goods and services.
In particular, the US Fedearl Reserve added over $4 trillion to its holdings, beginning in March 2020.
The European Central Bank added over $2 trillion to its holdings, while the Bank of Japan added over $1 trillion to its holdings.
Until recent weeks, in the US, rates of inflation increased to levels not seen since the early 1980’s.
Shortages of goods and services have affected all sectors of the economy, including the airline industry.
Lockdowns and restrictions were imposed oer a virus that in the US had an average mortality rate of about .07%, according to Statista.
Statista is an award-winning service that compiles and analyzes various types of data for corporations and governments.
For most age groups, the recovery rate has been 99%.
According to Our World in Data, in 2017, 56.94 million people died; in 2016, in 56.33 million people died.
In 2019, 58.39 million people died; in 2020, 59.23 million people died.
In 2018, the world’s population was 7,631,091,040
In 2020, the world’s populartion was 7,794,798,739.
During the “Hong Kong flu” of 1968, worldwide, up to 2 million people died from that virus, when the world’s population was about 3.5 billion.
During the lockdowns, for example, Germany reported an increase in the number of instances of deferred medical care, according to Agence France Presse.
In a number of countries, there were increases in the numbers of suicides, instances of drug abuse, domestic and child abuse, in the context of increasing levels of mental illness.
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