Families departing from London Heathrow for the summertime once more encountered lengthy lines, despite the airport’s top executive’s assurances that everything is “operating smoothly” and that “summer has got off to a really excellent start.”
Hundreds of people were lined up outside Heathrow’s Terminal Two at around 5 a.m. this morning, and other passengers snapped pictures of the same scene in Terminal Three at around 9 a.m.
While a “number of airports” have encountered “difficulties” over the previous several months, we’ve taken measures to make sure that doesn’t happen here,” Heathrow’s airport manager John Holland-Kaye maintained today.
The wait for security at Terminal Three this morning, according to sources at Heathrow, was between 15 and 30 minutes.
Passengers were put into a backup line that is utilised during extremely busy times like today.
Passengers at Terminal Two were in a covered walkway, which is where they are placed as a backup plan during peak hours because the terminal’s check-in space is rather tiny, where lines have since thinned out.
‘We’ve taken steps to prevent that from happening here. As I write this, Terminal 5 is operating smoothly, which is exactly what customers want.
They want to be confident that their summer vacation will go as planned, and that is what we can provide.
A Heathrow official responded to MailOnline when asked about the lines today, saying, “We are busy welcoming tens of thousands of travellers today as they make the most of aviation travel this summer.”
Although some passengers could encounter somewhat longer lines during peak hours, our workers are working hard to get everyone out, and the airport is operating normally.
In addition to the tens of thousands of flights already cancelled this summer, Heathrow announced on July 12 a cap of 100,000 departing passengers each day until September 11.
The decision was made after numerous airport travellers experienced major interruption in recent months due to lengthy security lines and malfunctions with the luggage system.
In recent weeks, images of growing stacks of misplaced bags have also surfaced.
According to Mr. Holland-Kaye, “We started to notice things going in the wrong direction” at the end of June.
We started to notice that planes were arriving late, that baggage were being loaded and unloaded slowly, that occasionally no bags were being carried on board, and that there were even last-minute cancellations.
There is not enough ground handling capacity being used by the airlines to ensure they can meet demand, which is why the pattern was growing worse as punctuality declined.
That is why we had to implement a cap, and it has been successful.
Since it was implemented, performance has significantly improved.
As a result of the difficult decisions we made two weeks ago, punctuality and baggage performance have both improved, giving customers more confidence to travel from Heathrow this summer.
He said as Heathrow announced that it is still in the red and does not plan to distribute dividends to shareholders this year.
The adjusted loss before tax for the first half of the year at the West London Airport was £321 million, down from £787 million in the corresponding period in 2021.
The increase in passenger volume, from 3.9 million to 26.1 million, was cited as the cause of the improvement.
Airlines’ fees also increased, but the airport claims that this was “compensated by rising expenses as we invested ahead of demand.”
As airlines struggle to replace personnel let go owing to the pandemic, a scarcity of ground handlers is ‘the limit on Heathrow’s capacity,’ according to the airport.
Additionally, Mr. Holland-Kaye referred to as “ridiculous” statements made by Ryanair Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan that airports are to fault for a lack of staffing.
Yesterday on the Today show on BBC Radio 4, Mr. Sorahan stated that airports “had one duty to accomplish” and should be held accountable for “not staffing up correctly.”
Mr. Holland-Kaye responded by saying, “It was ludicrous.”
They said that airports lacked sufficient ground handling personnel.
The airline is in charge of ground handling.
That would be like to their blaming us for their lack of pilots. They should be accountable for their ground handling.
Additionally, Mr. Holland-Kaye claimed that the pandemic had “seriously wounded” the aviation industry.
“Investments will be needed over the next years to rebuild capacity, with an emphasis on safety, consumer service, resilience, and efficiency,” he continued.
Airports must make up for underinvestment made during the Covid years, which at Heathrow entails upgrading the Terminal 2 baggage system and adding additional security lanes.
Airlines must hire and train more ground workers.
According to Heathrow, the shortage of ground handlers has been a source of worry for nine months.
We estimate that airline ground handlers only have about 70% of their pre-pandemic resources, and there hasn’t been any growth in their numbers since January, the report continued.
As leaving passenger counts routinely approached 100,000 per day in the second half of June, “we started to witness a disturbing increase in inadequate service levels for some passengers.”
Poor timeliness, bags arriving at the baggage area “extremely late” or not at all, and some flights being cancelled after passengers boarded were among the issues.
Since English and Welsh schools let out for the summer last week, Heathrow said that travellers have “had a seamless and reliable journey.”
According to a statement from the airport, this “builds on the success” of the Easter and Jubilee half-term breaks, when Heathrow “worked well when there was disruption at other airports.”
Peak hours are hectic at the airport, but any lines are well-managed and kept moving.
Before adding a second Dubai service from Heathrow’s London rival Gatwick, Emirates, the largest operator of long-haul aircraft, initially rebuffed requests to lower capacity at the airport.