- Welcome back.
I really don't want to fly much this summer
because I knew it's going to be bad, really bad.
- Yesterday, six hours here,
nobody answered nothing, nothing.
- They lost nine of our bags
that actually they went to Amsterdam without us.
- They put two ordinary people
into extraordinary circumstances,
and we will not be paid for that.
- [Reporter] There were seemingly endless lines of people
in front of Dublin airport on Sunday
as hundreds queued to enter.
- We were waiting for four hours in line,
and then we missed our flight because of it.
- [Reporter] Problems with the baggage system
at terminal two over the weekend
left hundreds waiting for three hours
to collect their luggage.
Issues with a lack of staff persist.
(melodramatic music)
- So let me share with you my experience of delay.
I actually only flew once in the month of June
from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
And guess what?
I had a five hours delay
on a one hour sector from LA to Las Vegas.
It were literally faster to drive to Vegas than fly.
The plane was mechanical at the gates,
so they don't have another spare plane,
and they keep telling you it's going to delayed for one hour,
then two hour, then three hour,
then finally they said five hours.
They're going to wait for another plane to arrive from Mexico,
then take us to Las Vegas.
My friend visiting me actually had a worse experience.
He had a very complex itinerary.
He flew from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago to Los Angeles
because he wanted to fly on the United 787-10,
and then from Los Angeles to Las Vegas
he want to fly on JSX to experience different things.
So every sector, his flights were delayed.
From Ft. Lauderdale, the plane push back on time,
but then there were ATC delay on the runway.
He was number 11 on departure.
By the time he arrived Chicago,
he has to run to his next plane
because he arrived literally five minutes
before the next departure time.
When he arrived at the gate, there was a long queue.
The boarding hasn't really started
because the aeroplane 787-10 was just arrived from Brussels
and is still doing baggage loading and servicing the plane.
He arrived at 40 minute late at Los Angeles.
Guess what?
The JSX flight was the last flight of the day.
It hasn't took off from Las Vegas to LA to pick him up.
So there was a rolled on delay for three more hours,
and he finally arrived at Las Vegas at midnight.
So I definitely don't recommend that kind of itinerary.
(melodramatic music)
Now, I've done a lots of research,
and I want to share with you these statistics and data.
Take a look at these airports and airlines.
They have the most cancellation and delays.
So think twice before you fly through one of these airport
or travel on one of these carriers.
Let's take a look at Europe first,
which has the worst hits of delay out of all the continents.
Amsterdam top of the list with 14,200 flight cancellation.
It is really ridiculous.
The situation is so bad
that when people have a 7:00 AM flight
they have to go to the airport 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM,
line up outside for three miles going around in circle
to get into the building to go through the security check
in order to meet their flights.
And guess what?
A lot of people couldn't meet the flights
because the long queue was too long, and they get stuck,
and then they miss their flights, and things became worse.
So Schiphol Airport management had finally set up
a measure to cap at 70,000 passengers per day
to pass through Schiphol,
which means there'll be lots of flights being cancelled
and push the airfares to go high
when we have such high demand.
- [Kurt] It varies also on which day of the week
passengers travelling through Europe.
So sometimes you have a good experience
in Paris or in London,
and the next day is different.
On Friday, that when Copenhagen was about
two hours waiting time for normal economy class passengers.
On Saturday, was only 10 minutes.
- Here's a couple airlines you need to watch out.
One of them is Scandinavian Airline SAS,
which actually filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week
in the US,
and also the pilots are going
through the second week of strike.
Only 51% of the flights of SAS has made it.
49% of flights are cancelled right now.
That really gives no confidence for travellers flying SAS
because you just don't know
whether your flights will take off.
The other airline I would recommend you to think twice
is Eurowings.
Eurowings has about 7.8% of all their scheduled flights
being cancelled,
and lots and lots of flights are delayed
through hubs like Dusseldorf or Hamburg
because long security queues
and then rolled on delays everywhere.
Let's say you're lucky you made it
through the airport security line,
and you made it on your flight, departed on time,
but having said that,
there might be still risk of flights when they arrive,
there's no gates, no baggage handler to meet at aeroplane,
and also your bags will come out late
or the worst case, you miss your bags.
So Icelandair has came out with a very interesting
and creative solution.
They send their own baggage handler on Icelandair flights.
When they arrive in Amsterdam,
they help out to load the baggage's speed up.
Let's move on to take a look at the stats in the US.
On average, one out of five flights is delayed
and also, about 20,000 flights in the last 30 days
has been cancelled.
The airport most delay and disruption in North America
is actually Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada.
About 46% Air Canada flights has been delayed.
So I ask some experts about when they think
the situation will get better and how to get better.
- [Kurt] The situation remains challenging
in Europe throughout the summer,
and we cannot expect for the improvement
and still there's lack of employees
and will not hire so many people additional soon.
Some airports try to hire people from outside Europe
or from other nations,
but it's also quite a bit difficult to do this.
Improvement can be expected after the high season.
So there will be maybe in quarter three or quarter four
as kind of stabilisation.
That means there's also less holiday traffic,
but it also means the ticket prices will go up
later this autumn in Europe by 25% is the main expectation.
What is a big lack here in Europe
is digitalization at airports.
So there must be more digitalization needed
for real time information to passengers.
So there's a lot of improvement necessary,
but at the moment, all these airports
are very with themself.
(engines roaring)
- So here, I want to help you by giving you some of my tips
how to travel better or how to equip better
to handle a flight delay or disruption.
So the first tip is to try to travel on nonstop flights
without connecting flights, as simple as that.
Don't try to have a complex travel itinerary
involving changing flights at airport unless you have to.
Right now, there are so many domestic
and regional flights being cancelled
due to airport implementing caps, controlling of the flows,
and also the shortage of staff.
So don't risk it.
If you have to travel, I would recommend morning flights.
Typically, the early morning flights,
the flights are arrived overnight,
and they're grounded at the airport ready for the turn
in the morning departure.
And now, be very careful if you book a late afternoon
and evening flights
because these flights suffer the rolled on delay
from the morning.
I also hate to tell you not to fly,
but if you are going short distances,
consider other modes transport by car or by train
because simply at a security checkpoint,
the queue might be so long
that you would arrive sooner by other mode of transport.
So the second tip is
to download airline app you're travelling
because these days airline tend to push out notification
faster on the app than you monitor airport screen
or your queue up at the airport service desk
when you have a flight delay or cancellation.
In my case, when I fly on United,
I receive the latest notification,
and then they also explain,
and they said, oh the plane is now out of service
due to mechanical fault.
And later they said,
we are waiting for a new plane to arrive from Mexico.
And then, so we have a bit of certainty,
and we have a bit of information, knowing what's happening.
The third point is monitor airport website
to see if any airport publish the security checkpoint time
so you don't have to go too early or go too late.
In US, TSA actually published, through myTSA app,
the average security check upon time throughout the US.
But in Europe, it's less digitised.
It's really up to the airport operator to share this,
but lookout Twitter, lookout news,
lookout flight tracking website
to see if your inbound flight is delayed.
The next tip I want to share is check-in online
before you go to the airport, check-in as early as possible.
Now, let's talk about your baggage.
Try to pack light.
The buzzword where it's carry-on only.
You know, try not to check the bag
because the chance losing your bags are high
and there'll be headaches after you arrive.
There's already tens and thousands of bags at the airport.
It's really hard to retrieve
and may take a long time to wait for delivery.
If you must check your bag,
I recommend take out some of the essential items
like toothbrush, like a spare sets of clothes,
and in case your bags don't arrive,
you have some minimum things to survive on,
and also take a picture of your checked baggage.
Some people say even the Apple AirTags
might help you to locate.
So document your bags before check-in.
Now, perhaps this is the most important travel tip,
just to be patient.
Common sense prevail,
you got to manage your travel expectation right.
I also recommend to have travel insurance
and also know your rights about compensation.
The Montreal Treaty is the oldest convention
to protect passengers' travel rights.
In case your bags are lost,
you could be entitled to 1400 Euro compensation.
Now, in the US, if you have oversold flights,
you get bumped off from the oversold flights,
you should be at least entitled to 200%
of the airfare you have paid.
These days, airline like passenger to know in advance
their flight's been oversold and try to get people
to beat up for compensation as to free up some seats.
In Delta Airline's case,
recently, they have offered people $5,000 to $10,000
to free up a flight.
It's incredible.
Now, in Europe, EU Regulation 261
protects travellers' right for flights departing from EU
and also for EU carrier operating outside of EU.
Under EC 261, you may be eligible for compensation
up to 600 Euro if your flight is delayed
for more than three hours,
but you have to prove that,
and you have to submit claims.
(engine revving)
Thanks for watching today,
and I hope you found some of the data useful
on the airport and airline with high delays and cancellation
and also some of the essential travel tips
help you to manage travel better.
And I hope things are getting better with less disruption.
I'll be back in the air
and share more experience with you soon.
(engine revving)
(melodramatic music)