Here’s why Easter travel chaos is ruining your holiday

The travel industry has had a dreadful time, but terrible management has made the situation worse, writes Hamish McRae

We are not prepared to wait six hours at the airport for a flight to Geneva (PA)

If you are caught in travel chaos over the Easter holiday, or indeed in the further troubles ahead through the summer, you have a right to be furious. But you also have a right to have an explanation. Economic commentators can’t do much to assuage the anger, except to report what is happening and try to explain it. Here goes.

There are two stories here. One is about the impact of the pandemic on service industries. The other is about dreadful management. The first was always going to be difficult to cope with. The second points to lessons to be learnt.

The key thing about service industries, and particularly about the travel and tourist business, is that you can’t store your output. Manufacturers could adapt to the pandemic by storing both components and finished products, though the upheaval of their supply chains has led to serious shortfalls in output. But overall demand for goods did not fall significantly during the lockdowns. So the challenge was to keep going under difficult circumstances.