Austria's Secretary of State for Tourism, Susanne Kraus-Winkler (ÖVP), believes that a wave of problems is building up in aviation. The difficulties with flight cancellations would be no secret, but she hopes "that somehow they can handle it".

Irregularities in air traffic could definitely become a problem for Austrian incoming tourism, because you are in direct competition with holiday destinations that are in high demand, such as Italy, Greece and Spain. The cancellation of incoming flights to Austria could result in fewer holidaymakers coming to the Alpine republic.

However, there are not only shortages in aviation abroad, but also in Austria. Only recently, Vida union member Daniel Liebhart told Aviation.Direct that the airlines are missing many flight attendants, that Austro Control air traffic control is understaffed and that there are too few staff at the airports in almost all areas. In his opinion it would be everything set up for a big summer mess.

Neither Austro Control nor the Austrian airports currently want something of possible bottlenecks, which could lead to chaotic states from failures. One is of the opinion that one has optimally prepared for the busiest time of the year to travel. The providers with the most offers, Austrian Airlines and Ryanair, have not thinned out their summer flight schedule from Austria so far. However, the AUA cannot rule out that individual rounds could be cancelled. The situation in Germany is different: Easyjet has to do this due to a lack of staff Reduce offer in Berlin Tegel. Eurowings and Lufthansa have in July 2022 alone around 1.000 flights removed from the program.

Kraus-Winkler is currently unable to estimate the impact that possible chaos in air traffic could have on Austrian tourism. The difficulties were no secret and, in her view, a "wave of problems" was building up. The State Secretary is also of the following opinion: "The airports that had more people on short-time work find it easier than those who have resigned".

The last statement by the government member is only correct to a limited extent, because in Germany, for example, but also at Vienna-Schwechat Airport, many employees who worked in the areas of passenger handling or apron, for example, quit their jobs during the pandemic and took up new ones Industries reoriented. Despite short-time work, numerous AUA flight attendants have resigned and are no longer interested in returning.

In most cases, the reason is simple: the short-time allowance was not enough to live on and the aviation industry, once popular as a safe and reliable employer, has not been considered stable since the beginning of the pandemic. This not only led to many on the ground looking for new jobs, for example in retail, but also to the fact that only a few applications were received for vacancies in aviation. Before Corona, airlines received thousands of letters of application for a few vacant flight attendant positions.