LONDON — Heathrow Airport in London said Thursday that its limit on the number of passengers is easing a travel crunch that has led to flight cancellations and lost luggage as soaring demand for summer trips runs up against pandemic-era staffing shortages.
Britain’s busiest airport has capped the daily number of departing passengers at 100,000 until Sept. 11 and asked airlines to stop selling tickets and cut flights, stirring criticism. The cap has cut down on last-minute flight cancellations and improved baggage delivery and on-time planes, Heathrow said in a statement.
The airport said it has hired 1,300 people and that the number of security screeners is at pre-pandemic levels, allowing 88% of travelers to get through checkpoints within 20 minutes.
“Passengers are seeing better, more reliable journeys since the introduction of the demand cap,” airport CEO John Holland-Kaye said. “This has only been possible because of the collective and determined efforts of airport, airline and wider Team Heathrow teams.”
Soaring numbers of travelers after two years of COVID-19 travel restrictions have overwhelmed airports and airlines, which had laid off thousands of employees during the depths of the pandemic.
Heathrow has been the frequent scene of chaos this summer, with long lines for security and technical glitches with the baggage system that resulted in huge piles of lost and unclaimed luggage. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport also has been hard hit and has imposed a passenger cap.
In London, Heathrow’s passenger limits led British Airways to temporarily suspend short-haul flight sales to destinations within the United Kingdom and Europe earlier this month.
The CEO of Ryanair, a budget carrier that flies out of other London airports, accused Heathrow of “mismanagement” in an interview with the BBC published Thursday. Michael O’Leary said he had he had “very little sympathy” for airports because they knew the schedules months ahead of time and security staffers don’t need as much training as pilots.
Heathrow said building up airline ground crews that service planes is key to easing the passenger cap and that it has launched a review with that goal.
It added that more than 6 million passengers traveled through Heathrow last month and 16 million are expected between July and September.
Copyright © 2022 The Washington Times, LLC.
Heathrow airport says passenger cap has eased travel chaos & Latest News Update
Heathrow airport says passenger cap has eased travel chaos & More Live News
All this news that I have made and shared for you people, you will like it very much and in it we keep bringing topics for you people like every time so that you keep getting news information like trending topics and you It is our goal to be able to get
all kinds of news without going through us so that we can reach you the latest and best news for free so that you can move ahead further by getting the information of that news together with you. Later on, we will continue
to give information about more today world news update types of latest news through posts on our website so that you always keep moving forward in that news and whatever kind of information will be there, it will definitely be conveyed to you people.
Heathrow airport says passenger cap has eased travel chaos & More News Today
All this news that I have brought up to you or will be the most different and best news that you people are not going to get anywhere, along with the information Trending News, Breaking News, Health News, Science News, Sports News, Entertainment News, Technology News, Business News, World News of this made available to all of you so that you are always connected with the news, stay ahead in the matter and keep getting today news all types of news for free till today so that you can get the news by getting it. Always take two steps forward
Credit Goes To News Website – This Original Content Owner News Website . This Is Not My Content So If You Want To Read Original Content You Can Follow Below Links