LONDON, (Reuters) – After a string of flight cancellations that caused major disruption to holidaymakers’ lives, Britain’s Transport secretary Grant Shapps told airlines not to sell tickets for flights they could not staff.

Europe has seen a rise in the demand for airports. But British airports will be struggling to meet this increase. This week is particularly challenging because of a combination of a weekend Jubilee public holiday and a school half term holiday.

Similar queues were seen at airports during Easter vacation. Shapps stated that although some progress had been made, it was not enough.

“We must ensure that there are no repeats of the events in the last days. Shapps stated that despite warnings from the government, airlines and holiday operators sold far more than they could deliver.

This must never happen again, and we should all make every effort to prevent it from happening this summer.

After two years of travel restrictions, airlines had hoped to see a record-breaking summer.

They have had difficulty recruiting staff since the chaos of the pandemic and complain that it takes longer to find new workers and vet them to be security cleared.

Shapps stated that the government helped the sector by amending the law to accelerate the recruitment process. He also said that he was going to meet with industry representatives to find out what went wrong and how to end the disruption.

He said, “I want to also be reassured about their plans for summer holidays.”

“Government did its job. It is now on airports, airlines and ground handlers to make sure everyone’s well deserved holidays can go ahead free from the major disruption we’ve seen in recent days.”