The head of Qatar Airways said that an “epidemic” of work from home is contributing to staff shortages leading to travel disruption in Europe this summer. The aviation sector is struggling due to truancy of staff that has resulted from the post pandemic surge in air travel.

The rise in air travel has also prompted London’s Heathrow Airport to impose various curbs on the capacity to avoid any delays.

The Qatar Airways Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker declined to comment on Heathrow where he serves as one of the members of the board of directors.

“We face the same problem in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany,” he said.

“So it is actually an epidemic in our industry. This all happened because people learned to get easy money from working out of their homes, and fewer people now want to come and do the jobs that they were doing,” Al Baker said.

By

Amna Sheikh