The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has repeatedly thinned out the flight schedule from the bases Zadar and Zagreb operated by the subsidiary Lauda Europe and postponed the inclusion of new routes. Some have even been temporarily discontinued. The reason for the procedure is not a lack of demand, but an acute lack of personnel.

Many airlines are currently suffering from not having enough flight attendants. In most cases, however, the cause is homemade, because many employees were made redundant in the course of the corona pandemic. A significant number have resigned themselves because of low basic wages or low short-time work benefits and have reoriented themselves in other sectors. Not only Wizz Air and the airlines of the Ryanair Group are affected by a shortage of cabin crew at many locations, but also Austrian Airlines. The Lufthansa subsidiary around 150 flight attendants are currently missing.

At Lauda Europe, the workforce at the bases in Vienna, London-Stansted and Palma de Mallorca is tense, but stable. In Croatia (Zadar and Zagreb) the situation is a little different, because many flight attendants are missing here. In some cases, employees from the Austrian base help out in order to be able to absorb the effects. Lauda Europe is urgently looking for flight attendants for both Vienna and Croatia.

Since there are currently too few cabin crews in Zagreb and Zadar, the flight plan was repeatedly shortened. The inclusion of new destinations has been postponed several times and routes that were only recently served for the first time are temporarily suspended. While they are confident that they will have enough flight attendants by the peak of the season, it will not be an easy task. Lauda Europe and Malta Air boss David O'Brien actually wanted it grow strongly in Zagreb.

The profession of flight attendant has become less attractive in the course of the corona pandemic. For many potential newcomers, wage cuts, short-time work or even the mere payment of the low base salary, as practiced by Wizz Air, act as a deterrent. So it is not surprising that both low-cost airlines and classic network carriers report that only a few applications are received for vacant cabin positions. What employers like to hide, however, is that many providers have tightened up wages because of the pandemic, so that newcomers are not exactly getting lavish wages. This is also evident at Austrian Airlines, whose entry-level salaries are below those of Lauda Europe, now a problem, both with the existing workforce and with potential newcomers.