DANIEL GORRY: The Inverness Courier columnist discusses options for staff who are stranded abroad due to flight cancellations
Thousands of people across the UK are experiencing flight cancellations due to staffing shortages, air traffic control restrictions and a resurgence in demand, and Scottish residents are among those affected.
Over the Jubilee weekend, 305 flights departing the UK were grounded and a further 189 international flights into the UK were also cancelled.
Understandably, the situation is causing a great deal of frustration for travellers. Cancellations have crushed the dreams of some, while others have found themselves “abandoned” at airports across Europe.
At the same time, the disruption also has a knock-on effect on employers. With employees stuck abroad with no means of working, firms will feel the strain.
Suppose you’ve never encountered this sort of situation before. In that case, you may be unfamiliar with your company’s policy regarding these scenarios and unsure what your options are if staff cannot show up for work.
Here’s what you need to know from an employment law perspective: Legally speaking, if employees are unable to work, they won’t be entitled to be paid. However, some contracts may state that the employee will be paid if they cannot attend work due to circumstances outside of their control – but this would be rare.
Employers, therefore, have a few options. First, if both parties agree – assuming the employee hasn’t exhausted their holiday entitlement for the year – time off due to cancelled flights could be taken as annual leave. While not ideal, this would at least mean that the employee is paid for the time they are delayed.
Fortunately, as leave years typically start in January or April, most employees should have some holiday left to take. Although, if they don’t or don’t want to dip into their holiday allowance, the second option would be to treat the absence as unpaid leave.
It’s important to note that employees have no legal right to unpaid leave. So while they can request it to avoid using their holiday allowance, this will be additional time off, which you might not want to agree to, or support, given it is essentially unproductive time.
Don’t forget – employers can compel employees to take holidays providing that they give them double the amount of notice as the amount of leave they want the employee to take – four days’ notice to take two days’ leave, for instance. Of course, this is unlikely to be much use if the employee’s flight is delayed by just a few days, but it’s worth bearing in mind.
The third possible solution is for the employee to work remotely from abroad while they wait for a flight home. Of course, this would rely on them having the equipment to work productively, which would be for the employer to determine.
Beyond these options, you might also want to check your leave policy to see whether there are other provisions for taking time off, such as time off in lieu.
For employment law advice tailored to your specific situation, contact WorkNest on 0345 226 8393 to ensure you’re approaching these unexpected absences compliantly.
