After an ATC system glitch caused flight cancellations and severe delays across the UK on Monday (28 August), chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership Julia Lo Bue-Said said it was "critical" airlines remain in close contact not only with their customers, but also travel agents and tour operators.
"The situation with air traffic control is likely to have had a major impact on those travelling back into the UK from overseas over the next few days," she continued.
"This busy bank holiday weekend is a popular time for families to return home before the schools return, and the issues with air traffic control will just add to the stress and anxiety for Brits flying back home."
Lisa Henning, managing director of the Inspire Group, said while many holidaymakers will have had a weekend of disruption, following the outage with air travel control and the P&O Cruises incident, the trade will have too.
"We have been inundated with calls from worried customers and the issue is we haven’t always got the right information," she said. "It is crucial that airlines and organisations that are implicated in issues like this communicate effectively with the trade."
She continued: "The first port of call from most travellers is their travel agent, and 99% of the time we don’t have the information available to advise customers what to do."
Tour operators and airlines often give emergency numbers for clients to call and the lines become "so busy", Henning said, agents can’t get through. "And this is further exacerbated at weekends and bank holidays, when agents don’t always have the staff available," she explained.
"With improved communication between all parties, the industry would be able to manage these unfortunate situations much more effectively and agents could more proactively assist."
Westoe Travel said: "Alice and Gillian were due to have this weekend off. Instead they have been working around the clock, dealing with customers affected by the storms in Spain and the Air Traffic control delays and cancellations."
