As soon as the last day of school is over, for many it’s time to go on vacation! The summer holidays start this weekend in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. The second wave of travel is rolling in NRW, where passengers had to struggle with sometimes chaotic conditions at the airports last weekend. The concerns of many travelers were correspondingly great. A quick check on Saturday:
The airlines also canceled a number of flights in North Rhine-Westphalia on Saturday: According to the airport, departures to London, Palermo, Edinburgh, Nice, Munich or Pisa were canceled at Cologne/Bonn Airport. There was a similar picture at the airport in Düsseldorf. Basically, however, the situation in the West has eased considerably.
Travelers had to be prepared for waiting times at the security checks of up to 20 minutes in Düsseldorf in the late morning. Baggage handling times vary by airline. However, the length of the lines in front of the counters remained within limits. Queues also formed at Cologne/Bonn Airport. According to a spokeswoman, however, all processes in the terminal ran orderly and quietly.
Because of the high number of passengers, Frankfurt Airport warned of disruptions and longer waiting times on Twitter – and recommended travelers to check in online or to be at the check-in two and a half hours before departure. Arriving travelers may have to wait a long time at baggage claim.
Saturday began relatively relaxed at Hamburg Airport. There are hardly any long queues, said an airport spokeswoman in the morning. A spokeswoman for the federal police responsible for security at the airport also spoke of a relatively quiet process. Only in the early hours of the morning were there somewhat longer waiting times. TV veteran Hugo Egon Balder and his wife Elena were among the passengers at Hamburg Airport. On Instagram she posted on Saturday: “Hamburg Airport has everything under control, no queues, very relaxed here”.
At the airport in Munich, people are also still relaxed: There, people are relatively relaxed about the start of the Bavarian summer holidays in August: “We’re doing everything we can to ensure that doesn’t happen,” said airport spokesman Ingo Anspach. However, the dynamic development poses problems for airports because there is a lack of staff in many places. During the pandemic, many employees of service providers found work in other industries: “There is a shortage everywhere”.
If you are stuck in the queue at the airport, you should make yourself known and document the situation on site. For example: taking photos of the long queues, picking up receipts for purchases at the airport. “Perhaps also network with fellow travelers and possibly exchange contact details in order to have witnesses later,” suggests Jan Philipp Stupnanek from the NRW consumer advice center.
If there are problems checking in for the missed flight, the airline would be responsible. If you miss a flight because of delays at security checkpoints, it is not that easy to claim compensation. According to the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia, this falls within the area of ??responsibility of the federal police.
In view of a number of flight cancellations and delays, the Ministry of Consumer Protection is also considering reviewing advance payment practices for flights. According to a spokeswoman, Minister Steffi Lemke’s house appealed to the airlines to proactively fulfill their “legal obligation to reimburse within seven days”, as the “Welt am Sonntag” reported. “Otherwise you will have to review the advance payment practice in its current form,” said the spokeswoman for the newspaper. When booking flights, consumers usually have to pay the cost of tickets in advance.
According to the ADAC, the streets should be busier this weekend than last. The highest congestion potential is on the routes towards the North and Baltic Sea coasts and on the way to the south. By Saturday noon, however, there were no unusually long traffic jams to report, at least in North Rhine-Westphalia. Traditionally, it should get busier again around halfway through the summer holidays. From the perspective of the automobile club, the truck holiday driving ban, which will apply every Saturday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. from this Saturday until the end of August, promises some relief.
