Another blow for air transport.
London's Heathrow airport, the main British "hub", is further thinning its flight program this summer: after dozens of cancellations on Monday, it announced on Tuesday July 12 to limit the number of departing passengers to 100,000 for two months. per day, which is 4000 less than its forecast.
Like other British and European airports, which have been in chaos for several months with cancellations, delays, long queues or baggage delivery problems, Heathrow is struggling to absorb the resumption of demand, mainly due to of a lack of staff.
"
On average, only around 1,500 of these 4,000 (discontinued) seats per day have already been sold, so we are asking our partner companies to stop selling air tickets for the summer to limit the impact for passengers
” , Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said in a statement.
Read alsoMore than 25,000 flight cancellations planned for August, more than half of them in Europe
Thousands of flights canceled this summer
Passengers queuing inside the departures terminal of Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport in London, Britain, June 27, 2022. HENRY NICHOLLS / REUTERS
According to him, certain critical functions at the airport are still experiencing a significant lack of staff “
in particular the ground staff employed by the airlines
” to manage check-in or baggage handling in particular.
The day before, the airport had already canceled 61 flights, after having asked certain airlines, at the end of June, to lighten their flight schedules.
Companies such as British Airways, Wizz Air or easyJet have for their part recently canceled thousands of flights this summer to phase their programs with their reduced capacities.
They benefited in particular from a temporary relaxation of the rules governing take-off and landing slots this summer, an initiative of the British government to allow companies to adapt their schedule without losing their rights for the following season.
Read also Strike at airports, canceled flights … Our advice for successfully flying despite everything this summer
Not all companies played the game
But while some airlines “
have taken significant steps
” to ensure maximum flight following this relaxation, not all have played the game, criticizes Heathrow, hence the new limit on the number of seats, in force until September 11, with the objective of "
protecting flights for a vast majority of passengers
".
British airlines and airports, which had laid off thousands of people at the height of the pandemic, are now struggling to recruit.
Heathrow says it started recruiting in November and estimates that by the end of July it will have as many security employees as before the pandemic.
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