Transavia acknowledges the striking cancellation of flights in the month of July. Especially the last week was ‘an unlucky week’. “Bad luck is too easy a word, but this will happen to you,” a spokesperson told TravMagazine on Friday. At Transavia, 61 flights were cancelled last month, twice as many as a year ago, according to figures from EUclaim from which the NOS, among others, cites. Although such an outage can happen at any organization, a spokesperson for the claims organization calls the outage at Transavia striking. ‘This is the third year after the corona crisis that dropouts are increasing. You don’t see this with other budget airlines, such as Ryanair and TUI.’ Travel companies are complaining a lot, as they have their hands full rebooking flights in the middle of the high season. Many travel companies have had to deploy additional employees. In the case of Prijsvrij/D-reizen, 500 holidays must be rebooked in a week, reports the NOS. The travel company says it understands that there may be problems. ‘But this has been going on for a long time. And now it’s hit again in the high season. We always manage to rebook a flight, but this is not good. Not even for confidence in aviation.’ According to Transavia’s spokesperson, the airline has run into many problems at the same time. For example, in one week, three aircraft were stationed at outstations, waiting to be repaired. ‘We then have to send people and parts in that direction. Our spare parts turned out not to be enough to cover everything in that week. And then, during a storm in Brussels, a baggage trolley crashes into an airplane. As a result, it will be grounded for a long time with considerable damage. We understand the frustrations of the tour operators. We also find this very annoying, for our partners and for our passengers. For last-minute flights, it is a challenge to find an alternative. ́ On the one hand, the ANVR wants to go along with Transavia’s explanation, but remains dissatisfied. ‘Of course, they don’t do this out of luxury, but things do go wrong at Transavia somewhere in the operation.’ The ANVR calls Transavia a good partner, with a wide network of destinations. ‘But you don’t want travellers to lose confidence in it. After the summer, we want to see how we can improve this together for next year.’ (Photo: Shutterstock).
