Dhe trip to the well-deserved vacation becomes a torture – at least for air travelers. The baggage conveyor belts at Düsseldorf Airport failed again on Saturday, which led to long queues at the check-in counter. At the neighboring Cologne-Bonn Airport, passengers were backing up in front of the security check and Lufthansa, which had canceled numerous flights in the summer months, cannot promise a quick return to normal operations.
At the airport in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital Düsseldorf, the baggage conveyor belts were initially stopped again on Saturday. A similar problem had already led to chaotic conditions on Friday. The summer holidays have begun in the most populous federal state. So it can happen that vacationers reach their destination, but not their luggage. “Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that luggage will be left behind in Düsseldorf today,” the airport said. The airlines would forward this as soon as possible. At noon, the system was back to normal operation with a delay in baggage processing. On the other hand, there were no long queues at the security check in Düsseldorf. “We have a waiting time of ten to 15 minutes in Düsseldorf and are very satisfied with that,” said a spokesman for the federal police of the dpa news agency. The federal police were able to hire a second service manager just in time to provide support. The main service provider also recruits additional assistants.
Sick security personnel in Cologne-Bonn
The problem shifted to the second major airport in North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne-Bonn. Here, passengers needed between one and one and a half hours until they could pass the security check. An airport spokesman justified this with sick leave “in the three-digit range”, which cannot be easily compensated for. In Hesse, the summer holidays won’t start for four weeks, but the airport operator Fraport cannot promise that everything will go smoothly. “We have initiated various measures and we are doing our best. Nevertheless, passengers have to be prepared for longer waiting times, both on departure and on arrival,” a Fraport spokeswoman told FAZ.NET.
Meanwhile, Germany’s largest airline does not expect the current problems to be resolved quickly. “Unfortunately, we will hardly be able to realistically achieve a short-term improvement now in the summer,” said Lufthansa board member Detlef Kayser of the “Welt”. Currently only helping to reduce the number of flights. He expects that “the situation will return to normal overall in 2023” and spoke of a global problem. Lufthansa recently announced that it would cancel almost 3,000 connections in the summer months. The low-cost airline Eurowings, which belongs to the group, also expects further cancellations of flight connections.
