London’s Heathrow said it would cap departing passengers at 100,000 a day this summer to limit queues, baggage delays and cancellations, and it was asking airlines to stop selling tickets for flights that could be curtailed. Britain’s busiest airport, like others across Europe, is struggling to cope as demand rebounds after the pandemic. Heathrow had between 110,000 and 125,000 daily passengers departures in July and August 2019.

Airlines at Heathrow had already responded to a government appeal to cut capacity, but the airport said it needed them to go further.

“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,” CEO John Holland-Kaye said in an open letter on Tuesday.

“We have therefore made the difficult decision to introduce a capacity cap with effect from 12 July to 11 September.”

“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,” he added.

The London airport hub said the cap was in-line with limits implemented at its rivals. Schiphol in the Netherlands has capped passenger numbers about 16% lower than 2019 levels, while Frankfurt has cut flights at peak times from 104 per hour to 94.

Heathrow said the average number of outbound seats still remaining in the summer schedules was 104,000 a day, 4,000 above its cap. It said on average 1,500 of these 4,000 seats had been sold to passengers.

“We are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers,” he said.

British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest customer, has already cut thousands of flights from its schedules this summer due to staff shortages.

Heathrow on Monday apologised for the long queues and baggage issues customers had endured in recent weeks, blaming staff shortages across the whole aviation sector.

UK airlines – like other airlines in large markets such as the US – is also very short of staff. British Airways, which removed over 13,000 employees from its workforce once Covid hit, is now facing a period of immense disruption due to its staff shortages, and the airline is desperately trying to introduce new recruits or assist those who were made previously redundant back into the workplace.

Back in 2020, faced with the uncertainty of a new pandemic, airlines were quick to fire tens of thousands of skilled employees. While air travel globally has been tipped to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023, it’s consistently been a ‘safe bet’ that markets such as Europe, and the US, would return to the skies much, much faster – especially following the initial vaccine rollout.

Now passengers want to fly…many airlines are struggling to cope with the demand (and grappling with their earlier decisions to remove so many skilled individuals from the workforce).

Over in the US, Delta yesterday reported a quarterly profit thanks to travellers willing to pay up to fly, more than making up for higher costs.

The carrier also vowed to improve reliability after an increase in delays and cancellations prompted it to scale back its summer schedule.

Delta said its third-quarter capacity would be 83-85% of 2019 levels, suggesting the airline is sticking with a conservative schedule compared with some rivals. The company expects a third-quarter profit and reiterated its forecast for full-year profitability.

It expects to see third-quarter sales 1-5% higher than three years ago, along with increased costs.

Delta is the first US airline to report earnings for the second quarter.

Delta’s costs for each seat it flew a mile, excluding fuel, were up 22% from 2019 for the three months ended June 30. Its fuel expense rose 41% from three years ago to $3.2bn.

A surge in travel demand helped the airline post $735 million in net income. In a measure of how high fares have risen, Delta flew 18% less capacity in the second quarter than it did in the same period of 2019, but it generated $13.82bn in revenue, 10% more than three years ago.

Revenue for domestic travel was 3% higher, Delta said, noting it also logged improvements in trans-Atlantic travel.

Delta and other airlines have been comparing their results to 2019 to show their progress in getting back to pre-pandemic performance.

Source: Civil Aviation Authority – Qatar