Explained: Why London Heathrow is capping departing passengers to 1 lakh a day until Sept 11

What’s going on?

As the coronavirus pandemic has retreated, people have returned to flying with a vengeance, and many airports around the world are spilling over with passengers. Heathrow, which is Britain’s busiest airport, has been struggling with endless queues and baggage delays, for which it apologised on Monday.

The British government had earlier appealed to airlines to reduce capacity, but Heathrow said on Tuesday that “further action” was needed.

“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,” Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said. “We have therefore made the difficult decision to introduce a capacity cap with effect from 12 July to 11 September.”

Holland-Kaye said that the decision would mean “summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport, or be cancelled”, and apologised to affected passengers.

But why is it just Heathrow?

It isn’t just Heathrow. Heathrow said it had capped passengers to the same extent as several other European hubs, including Schiphol in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, had.

Between 110,000 and 125,000 passengers departed Heathrow every day in July and August 2019. This year, Schiphol has capped numbers about 16% lower than its 2019 levels, and Frankfurt has cut flights at peak times from 104 per hour to 94, the Reuters report said.

Heathrow and several other European airports — and airlines — are facing an employee crunch and labour unrest. British Airways check-in staff put off plans for a strike last week after being assured higher pay, and a deal was struck with firefighters at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport as well.

There has been unrest at Lufthansa, SAS, Ryanair and Easyjet as well, and Norwegian Air has had to agree to pay hikes for pilots, media reports have said.

So will airlines cut flights at Heathrow?

It is very likely. “We are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers,” Holland-Kaye said.

The Reuters report quoted Heathrow as saying that even after British Airways, the airport’s biggest user, has cut a large number of flights, 104,000 outbound seats still remain in the summer schedules every day on average — which is 4,000 above the cap. And 1,500 of these 4,000 seats have already been sold on average.

So if you have bought a ticket, you might want to check with your airline or travel agent to make sure your flight is on track.