Trouble brewing for peak season

TravelMole Comment by Jeremy Skidmore (www.jeremyskidmore.com)

Travel agents are dropping window cards because, apparently, they are time consuming and annoy Trading Standards officers. To that you could also add they are totally unprofessional and perpetuate the image that the travel industry is run by wide boys.

Which other retailers – apart from your local newsagent advertising nearby massage parlours and student accommodation for rent – have hand-written scrawls in the window? You’d think, in 2006, companies could at least have an electronic display rather than one that looks as though it was put together by a primary school art class.

And so, as we enter peak season, how is the industry looking? DIY holidays are, not surprisingly, becoming ever more popular and, at the other end of the scale, those who have the cash are chucking it around. Just ask Kuoni, which recently sold a holiday for £200,000 to one family.

Meanwhile, I predict there will be plenty more window cards for the time being because the major tour operators peddling mass-market holidays still have plenty to sell. No bargains available in peak season? Don’t you believe it.

The huge oversupply of holidays (when you take into account the number of seats available on no-frills airlines) is a godsend for consumers, who are paying less in real terms for their trips than they were five years ago, but a nightmare for companies already on a low margin.

But, have no fear, trouble is also brewing on the horizon for holidaymakers, and just in time for peak season.

British pilots haven’t gone on strike for 20 years, despite severe provocation on occasions, but that could be about to change. To say the union, BALPA, is unhappy with a 2.4% pay offer from bmi to pilots at the airline’s three companies, is an understatement.

Not surprisingly, bmi is unwilling to discuss the matter with the press. But BALPA has and, unless a lot more money is put on the table by the end of next week, it is set to ballot its members on action, which could happen as soon as the middle of next month.

Meanwhile, BALPA is also at loggerheads with British Airways, which has a big hole in its pension fund. BA’s solution – to plug the gap with £500 million in return for pushing up the retirement age and making changes to pension payments – is not acceptable to the union.

BA is desperate to avoid scenes at Heathrow similar to last summer, when people were seen camping out on pavements as flights were delayed and cancelled following a dispute with the caterers, Gate Gourmet. The airline insists that negotiations are continuing with BALPA.

However, ominously, the union says it will take whatever action is necessary to protect the pension plans.

And who could forget the air traffic controllers? Not those in the UK, who seem to be a fairly passive lot, but the militants on the continent.

As aviation and safety expect David Learmount from Flight International says, it wouldn’t be a summer without some sort of strike from Italian, French or Spanish air traffic controllers. And if the French come out, it’s usually chaos because so many flights have to go over French air space.

Tacky window displays, discounts galore and strikes in peak season. Now who was it who said we were a proper, grown up industry?

*How do you think the season will go? Email your thoughts on the link below.