No 'quick fix' to airport chaos, Heathrow boss warns

Cap on flights to ease disruption may have to stay in place for at least another year

Passengers queue to check in at Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport, London, on Monday, as families embark on getaways at the start of the summer holidays. 

London Heathrow airport said airlines needed to hire ground staff more aggressively to help overcome persistent travel disruptions, warning a cap on flights to ease the chaos might have to stay in place for at least another year.

“This is not going to be a quick fix,” chief executive John Holland-Kaye said in an interview. 

“It’s absolutely possible that we could have another summer with a cap still in place. It’s going to take 12 to 18 months, and not just at Heathrow,” he said.

Heathrow introduced a limit of 100,000 daily departing passengers on July 12 and said at the time the measure would stay in place for two months. The airport operator struck a more combative tone, saying airlines need to shape up and replenish their depleted ground-handling resources and that Heathrow itself had done its fair share of hiring in the past six months.

Heathrow said its own resources are sufficient to cope with about 85% of the traffic seen in 2019, which is roughly in line with current demand. About 1,300 people have been hired in the past six months and the number of security personnel is about the same as it was pre-pandemic. 

Airline ground handlers, by contrast, still have no more than 70% of pre-Covid resources available. For airlines, the good news is that they will be able to charge more for the reduced number of seats, “so there is a silver lining in this for them”, Mr Holland-Kaye said.

Weeks of travel chaos

Weeks of travel chaos across Europe have pitted airlines against airports, each blaming one another for insufficient staffing and preparation as pandemic-weary travellers rushed to book their summer holidays. Scenes of long waiting lines snaking out of terminals, mountains of stranded luggage and abruptly cancelled flights have become familiar images at airports in Britain, Ireland, France and Germany, exacerbated by strikes at carriers including EasyJet and Lufthansa. 

EasyJet, which does not fly out of Heathrow and uses the nearby Gatwick hub instead, said disruptions forced it to take a £133m (€158m) charge in its third quarter. Ryanair had warned this week that delays to air-traffic control are a major issue, and that staffing at airports is still not at the required level.

“It’s pretty meaningless to start pointing fingers,” EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said on a call to discuss earnings. “There is nobody, no one across the industry who hasn’t seen and felt the pressure and the squeeze, whether it’s ground handlers or airport or air traffic management or airlines for that matter,” he said. 

Mr Holland-Kaye said airlines were responsible for hiring ground personnel, and there remain shortages in areas like check-in, baggage handlers and air-bridge operators. 

Some companies have struggled to retain their workers because the hours can be gruelling and pay is not always competitive, making a switch to areas like package delivery services more appealing. 

• Bloomberg