Federal Minister of Transport Volker Wissing has announced a timely solution to deal with the chaos in air traffic.

The FDP politician told Welt TV on Monday that a solution is within reach. “I hope now we can get experts from abroad with and without vulnerabilities here soon, so that this very, very unsatisfying situation for citizens can be relieved again.”

German airports and ground service providers want to directly employ thousands of foreign workers. Workers will arrive from Turkey and some Balkan countries, among others, for a limited period of up to three months. Discussions are currently underway within the federal government to clarify the prerequisites for this.

Foreign workers will likely be employed directly by ground handling providers, said Ralph Beisel, managing director of airport association ADV, dpa. Models for hiring employees would therefore be off the table.

The federal government had signaled its approval of the industry plan over the weekend. However, a final decision in coordination with the Ministries of Labour, Interior and Transport is still pending.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Labor said Monday that talks are continuing. First of all, it’s about waiving the so-called priority control, i.e. whether home workers are also available for the job.

However, there are still a few weeks before the first workers hired from abroad start working at German airports. The Federal Ministry of the Interior expects that they can still be used during the summer holidays.

Maximilian Kall, spokesman for the ministry in Berlin, said that workers hired in a short time could be used, for example, to carry luggage. “There are no security checks due to the training required there and the security standards applied there,” he said.

The spokesperson emphasized that everyone working in baggage handling should also pass the security check. This review by the relevant government authorities takes approximately two weeks.

The federal government’s goal is to ensure the rapid deployment of additional workers. “This summer” is about creating relaxation in travel. At the weekend, at the start of the holiday season in North Rhine-Westphalia, there were problems at many airports. The weather should also be tight at the start of the holiday season in Hesse on 23 July.

ADV put the total need for airports at around 5,500 workers this summer, including check-in and security checks.

Shortly before the start of the main holiday season, numerous airlines canceled their flights. Lufthansa has canceled a total of around 3,000 flights at its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, as more and more crew members are getting sick from Corona cases. Low-cost subsidiary Eurowings also canceled hundreds of flights in July. Market leader Easyjet canceled nearly 1,000 flights in the summer at Berlin Airport alone.