Aviation
Commercial /
Europe
Pointing the finger?
Heathrow blames operating limits on airline ground workers
Heathrow terminal 5
Image: Heathrow
Rafael Ramos
7/26/2022
Earlier this month, Heathrow imposed a limit on passengers per day to reduce recent delays and cancellations. The airport claimed that this limitation is due to the lack of ground workers and that this is the fault of the airlines.
"We have started to see a worrying increase in service levels that are unacceptable to some passengers; increased delays in getting planes flying, bags that do not travel with passengers or are delivered too late to the luggage room, poor departure punctuality and some canceled flights. after passengers boarded. This showed us that demand began to exceed the airlines' ground handling capacity and we took swift action to protect consumers by applying a limit on the number of departing passengers, more in line with their resources”, reads in the airport communiqué.
The limit imposed by the airport is 100,000 passenger departures per day. Heathrow estimates that soil resources are only at 70% of pre-pandemic capacity, as opposed to demand, which is only growing, already reaching or exceeding what it was before the pandemic.
"Summer holidays got off to a good start at Heathrow, thanks to planning ahead and keeping demand in line with airline capacity. I'm proud of the hard work everyone at Heathrow is doing, which has already helped millions of people flee helping more million to travel on their well-deserved summer vacation,” said Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye.
However, the original date for the withdrawal of the imposed limit was September 11, but it has been pushed back to October 29. Despite the date already set, the airport said the limits will remain in place until airlines have more ground resources.
On another occasion, the CEO clarified that although the airport has its own employees, ground assistants are hired by airlines to provide check-in personnel, load and unload bags and aircraft. The airport also says that about 1,300 employees have been hired in the past six months to handle the summer's heightened demand.
Ken Yam/Unsplah
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Rafael Ramos
Aviation enthusiast from an early age, he had his first contacts with the area developing that good old habit of spending dozens of hours in front of the screens of Micrsoft Flight Simulator and other simulators. With a solid background in various technological areas, including engineering and chemistry, Rafael has rejoined aviation as editor and author of articles and materials on our portal, providing invaluable help to the dynamics and expansion of the website and the aeronautical community, bringing us the news and updates so indispensable for us to remain current in our area of operation.
   
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