Heathrow Airport Passenger Cap Extended

Heathrow Airport Passenger Cap Extended

The UK’s busiest airport has extended its cap on passengers into late October. Due to chronic staff shortages plus a higher volume of passengers, London’s Heathrow Airport has extended its limits on daily passengers through late October.

A maximum of 100,000 passengers can depart Heathrow every day through 29 October. The cap was originally scheduled to run until 11 September.

“We want to remove the cap as soon as possible, but we can only do so when we are confident that everyone operating at the airport has the resources to deliver the service our passengers deserve,”

Ross Baker, Heathrow’s Chief Commercial Officer

Staffing shortages and labour unrest at airports and airlines have been a persistent problem around the world. 

Several other busy airports in Europe, including London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol, have introduced similar limits on passenger numbers in an effort to stop disruption, which plagued travellers earlier this summer with a barrage of delays, short-notice cancellations and baggage problems

How Does This Affect Travellers

It will not be up to individual guests to navigate the passenger cap on their own. Instead, the responsibility will fall to airlines.

Travellers who have already booked their tickets should assume their reservations are confirmed unless they hear directly from the airline about changes or cancellations.

Travellers will also be able to make new bookings, although flights may already be full and some airlines will likely reduce their flight schedules. It is likely that the reduced number of available seats and the possible panic of travellers rushing to secure reservations could lead to considerable fare hikes.

However, the cap extension will likely have less impact on vacation plans in the fall than it has had throughout the summer. There will probably be fewer passengers once school starts up again, which means normal passenger numbers may not even reach the cap on some days.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Talk to us in the comment section below.

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Charlie

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