London’s Heathrow Airport sets the limit for Passengers

To rectify the situation of exceeding queues, baggage cancellations and delays and to stop airlines from selling tickets for flights that could be curtailed, London’s Heathrow airport made the announcement to limit the number of departing passengers to 100000/day during this summer.

The Heathrow Airport in London is the busiest airport in Britain. And currently, it is struggling to cope with the resurgence of demand after the pandemic. In addition, the airlines at the airport are also responding to the government’s appeal to cut capacity, while the airport needed them to take further steps.

In regards to this, John Holland-Kaye, the CEO of London’s Heathrow Airport stated in an open letter that some airlines have taken some notable actions while others are yet to get on board. He also informs that they are taking further actions to ensure a safe and reliable journey for the passengers.

He further adds, “This means that some summer journeys will either be moved to another airport or be cancelled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected”. This statement was to signify the cap on passenger capacity which will be in place from 12 July to 11 September.

The cap was in-line with limits implemented at other airports, as stated by the airport authorities. While Netherlands’ Schiphol Airport has lowered the passenger numbers by 16 per cent of what it was in 2019, Frankfurt has cut back on the number of flights from 104 to 94 per hour.

According to reports from Heathrow, 104000 passenger seats a day is the average number of seats set to depart from the airport in the summer schedule, which is 4000 seats above the capped limit. 1500 out of these 4000 seats had been sold to passengers. However, the airport authorities are requesting its airline partners to halt selling tickets for the summer to reduce the impact on passengers.

Furthermore, due to staffing problems, British Airways had to cut the number of flights from its summer schedules. This staff shortage has caused problems across the whole aviation sector. Even Heathrow apologised for lengthy queues and issues in the baggage claim, which have been recently plaguing the customers for weeks.