Heathrow Airport CEO John Holland-Kaye warned about the current chaos in the UK’s busiest airport, claiming that the crisis could continue until next year. 

Heathrow urged airlines to cut their flight schedules amid staff shortages combined with the sudden increase in demand for overseas holidays in July. 

The airport recently introduced a cap of 100,000 passengers a day until the 11th of September. Airlines were required to stop selling tickets for summer getaways.

“This is not going to be a quick fix,” Holland-Kaye told Bloomberg on Tuesday. “It’s absolutely possible that we could have another summer with a cap still in place. It’s going to take 12 to 18 months, and not just at Heathrow,” – he explained. 

The cap is expected to be lifted once a sufficient number of new workers is hired to cope with the large flow of travellers. 

The airport announced it has hired 1,300 people in the last six months and will have “replenished security resources back to their pre-pandemic levels by the end of this month”, as Fortune reports. Heathrow also claimed airlines have “not followed their lead” in this matter. 

The situation looks different when taken from the airline CEOs point of view. The latter have criticised Heathrow for a “lack of foresight” and for “underestimating the strong return of travel demand.” 

Image: Getty Images

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen