The airport was already overburdened with the soaring demands for summer trips. This led to flight cancellations and loss of luggage due to staff shortages post-pandemic.
London's Heathrow airport has limited the daily number of departing passengers to 100,000 until Sep 11. The capping of passengers has helped the airport authority in improving services for passengers by cutting down the cases of last-minute flight cancellation, improved baggage delivery, and on-time planes, reported AP.
However, many passengers are also facing problems due the cap introduced by the airport. The airline industry can not keep pace with sudden boost in demand after laying of several staffers, pilots and other employees during pandemic.
As many as 1300 people have been appointed by the airport to reduce the checking time at the entrance. The new hiring has helped around 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 the airport, airline and wider Team Heathrow teams."
Governments across the world have been easing the COVID restrictions as the world comes out of the pandemic situation. This is resulting in overwhelming airports and airlines, that had laid off thousands of employees during the depths of the pandemic.
Passengers have to face several issues during their travel from Heathrow airport. From long lines for security checks to glitches with the baggage system, there was a huge pile of lost and unclaimed luggage. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport also has been hard hit and has imposed a passenger cap.
In London, British Airways had to temporarily suspend its short-haul flight sales to EK and Europe due to Heathrow's passenger limits. Heathrow
In an interview with BBC, the CEO of Ryanair, a budget carrier that flies out of other London airports, accused Heathrow of mismanagement. Citing the schedules of flights and other things already fixed months ago, Michael O'Leary said he had ‘very little sympathy’ for airports.Moreover, there are other airlines like United Arab Emirates, that had rejected the Heathrow's demand to cut passengers.
Heathrow also said that hiring airline ground crews that service planes are a good option for reducing the passenger caps. Moreover, the airport has also launched a review with that goal.
It also said that more than 6million passengers have travelled through Heathrow in last month and the tally is expected to reach 16 million between July and September.
With inputs from AP and PTI
