TUI passengers in the UK have been encouraged to bring their own food and drink after the airline announced its meal service would be ‘limited’ due to staff shortages over the coming days.
UK and Ireland-based TUI passengers have been encouraged to BYO snacks on their short and mid-haul flights as staff shortages have forced the operator to cut food and beverage services for the next few days.
Passengers from 15 airports are affected. These airports are:
- Birmingham
- Bristol
- Cardiff
- Doncaster Sheffield
- Dublin
- East Midlands
- Edinburgh
- Exeter
- Glasgow
- Humberside
- Leeds Bradford
- Luton
- Manchester
- Norwich
- Teesside
TUI says the disruption does not affect any long-haul flights to Aruba, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Orlando and St Lucia, with meal services on these flights continuing to operate as normal.
“We can confirm that unfortunately due to staff shortages with our catering supplier, there may be limited food and drinks services available onboard TUI Airways short- and mid-haul flights over the coming days,” a TUI spokesman said.
“Customers may therefore want to bring their own food and soft drinks onboard (no alcohol permitted). Any soft drinks over 100ml will need to be purchased after you have passed through security”
The operator says it will be continuously monitoring the situation and working closely with its suppliers to limit the impact to the onboard service for our customers.
The news comes after a difficult month for airlines and passengers alike.
Last month British Airways and easyJet were both forced to cancelled hundreds of flights over the Easter break due to pandemic-related staff shortages.
British Airways said many of its cancellations included flights that were cut when it decided in March to reduce its schedule until the end of May to boost reliability amid rising COVID-19 cases.
easyJet said it was rostering additional standby crew, but it had cancelled some flights on routes where it runs frequent services so passengers had options to rebook.
Britain’s Airport Operators Association said its members were also increasing staff as quickly as possible.