Heathrow Airport has asked airlines to stop selling additional tickets for travel this summer, following its announcement of a cap on passengers allowed to fly from the London airport.
The hub is to limit passengers to 100,000 daily until the 11th of September, as it struggles to manage the high demand and a lack of resources.
The CEO of Heathrow Airport John Holland-Kaye wrote an open letter to passengers to announce the bad news. He explains that the “difficult decision” had to be made given the fact that „over the past few weeks, as departing passenger numbers have regularly exceeded 100,000 a day, we have started to see periods when service drops to a level that is not acceptable”.
“Our colleagues are going above and beyond to get as many passengers away as possible, but we cannot put them at risk for their own safety and wellbeing„, – the letter reads.
Several airlines have been making efforts to reduce the number of passengers travelling via the London airport.
Yet, Holland-Kaye insists that Heathrow’s latest forecasts reveal that an excess number of seats has already been sold, and that is why airlines need to stop selling tickets as early as possible.
“We are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers„, – Holland-Kaye emphasises.
In 2018, the daily number of passengers going through Heathrow was nearly 220,000, split between arrivals and departures.
Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) called Heathrow’s travel restrictions „ridiculous.” and accused Heathrow of “trying to maximise the profitability that they get from the airport at the expense of airlines.”
The airport answered Walsh’s criticism via a spokesman by replying that “aviation is under considerable pressure as demand ramps up” and invoked the “need for collaborative working and investment in services to protect passengers, not ill-informed comments from retired airline bosses”.
The story is to be continued.
Image: British Poles
Author: Sébastien Meuwissen
