I have an idea - maybe the UK could join a setup where free movement of labour and goods is available - it could be called the EU.

so why are airports in Ireland struggling. Also Schipol airport is having problems. This is down to covid. This is what happens when you lay people off and force business to close down. If people have to spend their money in the UK instead of abroad then surely that is a good thing for the uk government. Also it is correct there is a depleted labour market in the UK. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. For the first time in my life time at least, the worker has a lot of power.

It’s going to be another kick in the spuds for Spains tourism industry. Feel sorry for everyone that relies on tourists in Spain.

So they should stop moaning about being held up at airports or having their holidays cancelled. Can't have it both ways.

The problem is simply caused at the best by bad planning ( this would easily have been foreseen by the industry) however the brutal truth is that the industry simply wants to maximise profits. If you look on any of the airline websites they are still selling flights for this week with no attempt to warn customers of potential delays or cancellations. They will have been paying alot of attention to statistics regarding the potential liability for cancellation fees etc and will know that probably less than half the customers will go to the effort to try and receive refunds and especially if the company can say they comply with the law but place the burden of effort on the customer ( you have to make the calls , write the emails, enter the reference numbers, card details, dates, then wait months for refunds). They will know that all they need to do is sell seats. Everything else ( the problems) will fall on the shoulders of the low paid young front line staff to deal with who will be unable to do anything but receive abuse. ( No Managers will be available for the public to question) . That is the real reason this is happening. The airlines and airports know people want to desperately travel and are seeking to maximise on that without acting illegally whereas the moral responsibility simply doesn't exist especially now in UK where you have a prime minister and government who seemed to have set such a low level of moral and social responsibility. This really is the truth about the UK. They have finally started to reap what they have sown.

As a post script I would like to use Spain as a contrary approach to social responsibility. Today the Spanish government have passed a law requiring all companies to answer phone calls within 3 minutes, emails with 24 hours, and the opportunity to speak with a person not a bot. Each failure will have a 180 euro fine. So now your bank if offering a customer help line will need to answer you in 3 minutes. Also you will no longer have to phone premium lines! How good and progressive is that!! Meanwhile in the UK ....the return of imperial measures and the watering down of the code of ministerial conduct ....oh yes and another useless piece of expensive pageantry ( with 1940s bunting!!) designed to evoke nostalgia for an age long past and a 90 plus grandmother who is expected to never talk to members of her own family because of their apparent behaviour!

I am sure the airlines new days and possibly weeks(?) before they cancelled and could have given more warning to Joe Public

I shall look forward to reading about a general real terms rise in wages and improvements in other areas as employers are forced to come to terms with this new reality.

If those don't materialise, what might be reasonable assumptions to make about the possible reasons?

Immigration?

And why not. If I were in charge of the Uk I would re implement all of the immigration rules that were allowed before the freedom of movement came in.

In the 80's you couldnt move a foot (or 300mm) without falling over an Aussie who was n the UK on a work/travel visa.. We had about 20 working in the Jewellery factory I was in at the time doing all the temp jobs.
In the late 80's and 90's I moved into factory work in Wembley and there were around 150 African short term contract workers, all paid good money (in fact if they did 12hrs they earned more than I did for my 8hr engineers shift), they were all nice people and easy to talk to (and I still keep in touch with a couple of them now).
Also had almost 99% Indian and Asian workers in the sandwich factory until freedom of movement came in and they were all replaced with cheap eastern european labour (and hardly any spoke english or even integrated unlike a lot of the Asian workers).

My daughter went out to Australia in 2015 on a work/holiday visa and all the locals she met were disappointed that the Uk no longer offered the same thing, as being in the EU meant that EU citizens had more rights than those from the Commonwealth (and yes Im serious about the last bit of that comment)....

My comment was tongue in cheek!

The locals your daughter met hadn't done their research!
As far back as I can remember (and I'm an old girl), young Australians have been able to travel to the UK for a work/holiday visa, it's a reciprocal arrangement. In 2015 the relevant visa for an Aussie aged 18 - 30 to travel to and work in the UK was the Tier 5 Youth Mobility Scheme visa. This visa was introduced in 2008 and replaced the previous Working Holiday visa.

I took a look at job vacancies today at East Midlands Airport as I saw they had problems yesterday and they blamed in on staff shortages. However, there are only 4 jobs actually open as of yesterday . Cleaners, hospitality and air traffic controller!!. So how does that all square? Where are the vacancies for security staff? If you ask me the airports are full aware of the problems but dont actually want more staff because they desperately want to claw back profits. Basically they know that people will wait because they have already shelled out alot money for their holidays and all this queuing will become the new norm and we will just have to put up with it or simply not go abroad on holiday.

Maybe the positions you wish were on your search are independent contractors or even government employees so would not be on the aeroports job listings.

I don't think so as the vacancies listed were different contractors at the airport

It definitely puts people off booking anything in the kids holidays at least.