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Heathrow imposes further flight cap for summer
After a number of last-minute cancellations over the last few days at Heathrow Terminals 3 and 5 at the request of the airport, Heathrow has now gone even further. Apparently, the airline’s schedule for the summer, which has been in place for many months has taken them by surprise, and they are now imposing a cap of 100,000 departing passengers per day. To put that in context, in 2019 they were handling 109,474 departing passengers a day on average. It would have been substantially more during busy periods.
Yesterday, probably as a way to garner sympathy ahead of this announcement, the airport put out a PR piece about how the growth in passengers in 2022 was equivalent to 40 years of growth. This is spin nonsense. For a start prior to Covid, the airport handled more passengers than it currently does; secondly, even an idiot could predict that travel would start rising this year and when it became clear that omicron was less of an issue, there would be even more demand. It’s not starting from zero either, so I don’t see how you can compare it to 40 years of growth when all the facilities are already in place to handle more passengers than it is currently doing.
The airports and airlines have had months to get themselves up to speed. They got rid of people during the pandemic even with the government’s furlough schemes in place. The roles are generally badly paid and involve shifts which most people don’t want to do. They have not offered any more money for these roles, and many roles are actually offering worse terms and conditions than before the pandemic. No wonder people don’t want to come back. So many of their issues are self-inflicted, in my opinion.
Heathrow’s CEO, John Holland Kaye issued this statement this morning,
“The global aviation industry is recovering from the pandemic, but the legacy of COVID continues to pose challenges for the entire sector as it rebuilds capacity. At Heathrow, we have seen 40 years of passenger growth in just four months. Despite this, we managed to get the vast majority of passengers away smoothly on their journeys through the Easter and half term peaks. This was only possible because of close collaboration and planning with our airport partners including airlines, airline ground handlers and Border Force.
“We started recruiting back in November last year in anticipation of capacity recovering this summer, and by the end of July, we will have as many people working in security as we had pre-pandemic. We have also reopened and moved 25 airlines into Terminal 4 to provide more space for passengers and grown our passenger service team.
“New colleagues are learning fast but are not yet up to full speed. However, there are some critical functions in the airport which are still significantly under resourced, in particular ground handlers, who are contracted by airlines to provide check-in staff, load and unload bags and turnaround aircraft. They are doing the very best they can with the resources available and we are giving them as much support possible, but this is a significant constraint to the airport’s overall capacity.
“However, 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: long queue times, delays for passengers requiring assistance, bags not travelling with passengers or arriving late, low punctuality and last-minute cancellations. This is due to a combination of reduced arrivals punctuality (as a result of delays at other airports and in European airspace) and increased passenger numbers starting to exceed the combined capacity of airlines, airline ground handlers and the airport. 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.
“Last month, the DfT and CAA wrote to the sector asking us all to review our plans for the summer and ensure we were prepared to manage expected passenger levels safely and minimise further disruption. Ministers subsequently implemented a slot amnesty programme to encourage airlines to remove flights from their schedules with no penalty. We held off putting additional controls on passenger numbers until this amnesty process concluded last Friday and we had a clearer view of the reductions that airlines have made.
“Some airlines have taken significant action, but others have not, and we believe that further action is needed now to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey. We have therefore made the difficult decision to introduce a capacity cap with effect from 12 July to 11 September. Similar measures to control passenger demand have been implemented at other airports both in the UK and around the world.
“Our assessment is that the maximum number of daily departing passengers that airlines, airline ground handlers and the airport can collectively serve over the summer is no more than 100,000. The latest forecasts indicate that even despite the amnesty, daily departing seats over the summer will average 104,000 – giving a daily excess of 4,000 seats. On average only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers.
“By making this intervention now, our objective is to protect flights for the vast majority of passengers at Heathrow this summer and to give confidence that everyone who does travel through the airport will have a safe and reliable journey and arrive at their destination with their bags. We recognise that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected.
“The airport will still be busy, as we are trying to get as many people away as possible, and we ask you to bear with us if it takes a little longer to check in, go through security or collect your bag than you are used to at Heathrow. We ask passengers to help, by making sure they have completed all their COVID requirements online before they come to the airport, by not arriving earlier than 3 hours before their flight, by being ready for security with laptops out of bags and liquids, aerosols and gels in a sealed 100ml plastic bag, and by using e-gates in immigration where eligible. We are all recruiting as fast as we can and aim to return to the excellent service you should expect from the UK’s hub airport as soon as possible.”
Hopefully, this does not result in more flight cancellations since Heathrow are asking airlines to stop selling seats rather than cancel flights. However, the main issue is that this will drive flights prices even higher than the already astronomical levels. This will have a bad impact on Heathrow and the airlines over the longer term. People will start looking at low-cost carriers and take their business to other airports. If they like the experience, it could be a long time before you get them back again. It’s certainly driven me to look at different carriers this year and meant I will be more choosy in the future rather than just choosing the most obvious airlines.
Virgin hotels join Virgin Red
Virgin Red has announced its latest partnership, giving members the opportunity to earn 2,000 Virgin Points when they book a stay with Virgin Hotels. This does not apply to Virgin Limited collection hotels.
With six hotels already opened across the US and UK with more to follow, Virgin Red members can top up their points balance by booking their next stay at one of Virgin’s hotels. Locations include Edinburgh and Glasgow in the UK and Las Vegas in the US.
Virgin Red members must also sign up to Virgin Hotels’ The Know in order to earn points from this exclusive offer. This is the slight downside as it’s Virgin’s own loyalty scheme, so at the Las Vegas Curio property it would probably preclude you from earning Hilton points.
Find out more at https://www.virgin.com/virgin-red or download the Virgin Red app on your smartphone.
BA suspend Manchester-Gatwick
If you want to fly from the regions to any of the destinations served by BA from Gatwick, it has often meant a trek around the M25 from Heathrow. That will increase now as BA has decided to suspend their service from Manchester to Gatwick from 29 October 2022. This is the end of the summer schedules. Previously they had a daily service to and from Manchester year-round. There are also no seats available for sale for summer 2023 either.
15 comments
I will be flying with Royal Jordanian to BKK via AMM in the new year, mainly because the ticket price was a third of BA price but also the potential cancellation with BA from T5.
I trust that with the current mess which is LHR, Holland-Kaye and his ‘top’ team will not receive a penny in bonuses at any point in the next five years and there will be no shareholder dividends either until the service passengers receive is better than pre-pandemic and the staff are better paid.
I have a couple of neighbours in their early sixties who decided not to return to work post-pandemic reckoning they could now manage but they are bored. Both would gladly look for work but not on such awful terms and conditions or for the money that LHR is offering. The world has changed but LHR management haven’t yet realised that. When they do, people will work for them for flexible hours and more money.
Similar to Tony, I work in the Middle East and have been flying Turkish Airlines direct from Scotland to IST to catch a connection rather that enter into the chaos of LHR. As a Gold BA member my loyalty has been tested to the extreme with last minute cancellations and customer service an absolute shambles. Prices are astronomical and unsustainable with me booking two EasyJet flights last night from LGW-EDI for £28.99 each compared to BA Business at £398 EACH! This bubble needs to burst.
Totally agree. This is exactly what I have been saying. Most people will not pay the prices currently or put up with the chaos. People will start to do exactly what you have. The issue is they may not come back.
What obligation have BA got to provide me with an alternative method of getting me from Manchester to Gatwick on a Manchester to Lanzarote via Gatwick flight.
They will offer you a flight to Heathrow most likely.
As it’s a Monday morning flight around 11am not sure a flight to Heathrow will work not enough time to transfer across. Would they offer Sunday flight with overnight in London Gatwick. I am Silver executive member what’s the best to way to contact BA as no options on my booking online.
Thanks
Yes you should be offered a flight the night before to connect. You can try the silver line a few minutes before they open in the morning so you have gone through the menu options before they open. There is also Twitter who are quite slow but will reply eventually if it is not urgent. You can also call another BA office in a different country such as the US who are often less busy.
These CEOs & Director Generals are the architects of many of their own industry’s current problems, but seem oblivious to it. Or are they just keen to draw attention away from their decisions during the pandemic?
Absolutely. Not a single one has ever referenced the redundancies they made. The fact that some companies like Virgin managed to let some people go but kept them in a holding pool if they wanted to come back shows it can be done. Virgin have had very very little cancellations as a result. They also didn’t slash their pay and conditions.
As you say, the fact that there are plenty airports and airlines faring better than the ones who chose to follow a particular route is the proof.
Disappointing to read that MAN/LGW is suspended, perhaps gone as you suggest looking at the S2023 period? – Little hope I would think for BA EDI/LGW being re-started.
I assume that the BA Euroflyer (lower cost to BA) business model is aimed totally at point to point traffic, rather than connecting traffic with the potential extra costs relating to possible missed connections & delayed bags.
As an EDI traveller, I can’t see me passing through LGW any time soon using BA. I have just booked a LH ticket in Business EDI/FUE returning LPA/EDI for Feb 23, changing at FRA I know, but better than using the M25 using a LHR/LGW transfer! – BAs loss, Star Alliance gain!
Yes exactly as you say. Euroflyer is designed to be low cost and connecting traffic can cost more. However I’d say at the moment it’s more a case of priorities when they are short of staff. They still have some long haul routes at Gatwick which are part of main line BA. I’m guessing they think people will connect from Heathrow but it’s a bit of a trek.
As a sad indication of BA’s current appalling service level, belying the promises of improvement, a letter sent by Recorded Delivery addressed to Sean Doyle and delivered over 2 weeks ago has not elicited any response. I was obviously only expecting a response from a high level complaints functionary, but I was expecting some reply. It looks as if I’ll be moving back to using KLM from Bristol. I’ll investigate LH, but with only one flight a day the connections will presumably be poor in the inbound direction.
Unfortunately thousands of people are sending emails and letters to Sean Doyle so they simply can’t cope with the volume. Even a standard complaint can take up to 8 weeks or longer to get a reply at the moment.
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