The chaos at London's Heathrow airport has led its leaders to announce that they have set a limit of 100,000 daily passengers who will be able to pass through its terminals until September 11, in order to be able to cope with the high demand for travel and the staff shortage. Airlines planned to operate flights with an average daily capacity of 104,000 seats during that period, according to Heathrow.
As the places offered exceed the maximum capacity of the infrastructure, the airport has asked airlines to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact that strong demand may have on passengers. Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said today that in recent weeks the number of passengers passing through the terminals has regularly exceeded 100,000 per day.
This has led to problems such as long lines, delays for passengers requiring assistance, bags not traveling with passengers or arriving late, poor punctuality and last-minute cancellations, Holland-Kaye said. "Some airlines have taken significant steps, but others have not, and we believe further steps need to be taken now to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey," she added.
The cut in daily passengers will mean that some summer trips have to be moved to another day, another airport or even have to be cancelled, for which the CEO of Heathrow has apologized to those affected. The company that manages the airport has detailed that the airlines have offered 4,000 more seats per day compared to the maximum capacity of 100,000 that has been established as a limit. The problem is that some 1,500 of these 4,000 remaining seats have already been sold.
Heathrow yesterday asked airlines to cancel 61 flights due to the impossibility of managing the high number of passengers passing through its facilities. An official spokeswoman explained that terminals three and five of the airport estimated the arrival of a number of users "greater than their capacity allows", for which she asked "some" companies to cancel flights.
Willie Walsh, head of the body that represents global airlines, the International Air Transport Association, criticized the new restrictions at Heathrow saying the airport underestimated the speed of recovery from the pandemic and focused on profits at the expense of airlines, Now they must pay the bill.
