SYDNEY, Sept 23 (NNN-AAP) – With millions of Australians heading away for school holidays, an understaffed Sydney airport saw mass flight cancellations, due to severe weather.
Severe thunderstorms saw more than 40 flight cancellations, as heavy rain hit Sydney and much of the state of New South Wales (NSW), as well as, parts of Queensland yesterday.
While the Bureau of Meteorology has downgraded its severe weather warnings, as of this morning, heavy rainfall is expected to continue in the following days.
As school holidays are set to begin tomorrow, in most states around the country, and some are already on holiday since last week, Sydney’s airport anticipates that almost 2.4 million passengers will pass through, with 1.65 million flying domestically, and 720,000 internationally, in the period from this Monday to Oct 9.
All of this is on top of the airport struggling to fill job vacancies, left by the COVID-19 pandemic. In anticipation of this busy week, it held a second jobs fair to try to fill labour shortages.
Sydney Airport CEO, Geoff Culbert, said, all of the organisations across the airport have been working hard, to rebuild the workforce, and operational performance is improving, but labour shortages are an ongoing challenge with around 4,000 open roles across the airport.
Meanwhile, the national carrier, Qantas, has scheduled larger-than-usual aircraft between the country’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as, extra staff available in terminals, to manage the large influx of passengers to be brought by the upcoming holiday.– NNN-AAP
