iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
Travel demand at London Heathrow Airport, the biggest in the UK and one of the largest in the world, will not return to pre-pandemic levels for several years, “except at peak times”, due to the worsening global economic outlook, the Russia-Ukraine war and the impact of Covid-19.
The airport said in a statement on Wednesday that it expected total passenger numbers for 2022 to be between 60 million and 62 million, about 25 per cent fewer than in 2019, reports Xinhua news agency.
“While demand is stronger, it is not fully recovered,” the statement said.
“We can be proud that everyone at Heathrow pulled together to serve consumers this summer – ensuring 18 million people got away on their journeys, more than any other airport in Europe, with the vast majority experiencing good service,” Heathrow Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Holland-Kaye said.
On October 30, the airport will lift the self-imposed cap of 100,000 passenger departures per day, though it may be re-imposed “on a small number of peak days in the lead up to Christmas”.
The airport acknowledged that it still needs to recruit and train up to 25,000 security-cleared staff – “a huge logistical challenge”.
Thousands of passengers have faced delays and flight cancellations in recent months with airports and airlines struggling to recruit enough staff to cope with the surge in demand for international travel, following the removal of Covid restrictions.
Airports and airlines cut thousands of jobs at the height of the pandemic, and many workers haven’t returned to the industry due to finding other jobs.
The airport facility is owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings. In 2021, it was the seventh-busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic and eighth-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic.
Heathrow was founded as a small airfield in 1929 but was developed into a much larger airport after World War II.
The airport lies 14 miles (23 kilometres) west of Central London on a site that covers 12.27 square kilometres (4.74 square miles).
It was gradually expanded over seventy-five years and now has two parallel east–west runways, four operational passenger terminals and one cargo terminal. The airport is the primary hub for both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
Heathrow Airport is used by over 80 airlines flying to 185 destinations in 84 countries. The airport is the primary hub of British Airways and is a base for Virgin Atlantic.
It has four passenger terminals (numbered 2 to 5) and a cargo terminal. Of Heathrow’s 78 million passengers in 2017, 94% were international travellers; the remaining 6% were bound for (or arriving from) places in the UK.
The busiest single destination in passenger numbers is New York, with over 3 million passengers flying between Heathrow and JFK Airport in 2013.
When ranked by passenger traffic, Heathrow is the sixth busiest internationally, behind Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, Dubai International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and Tokyo Haneda Airport, for the 12 months ending December 2015.
In 2015, Heathrow was the busiest airport in Europe in total passenger traffic, with 14% more passengers than Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport and 22% more than Istanbul Atatürk Airport.
Heathrow was the fourth busiest European airport by cargo traffic in 2013, after Frankfurt Airport, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
In 2020, Heathrow’s passenger numbers dropped sharply by over 72%, (a decrease of 58 million travelers compared to 2019), due to the impact caused by restrictions and/or bans on travel caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Heathrow Airport has four terminals with total of 115 gates, 66 of which are able to support wide-body aircraft, and 24 gates that are able to support an Airbus A380.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Heathrow’s services were sharply reduced. It announced that as of 6 April 2020, the airport would be transitioning to single-runway operations and that it would be temporarily closing Terminals 3 and 4, moving all remaining flights into Terminals 2 or 5.
London Heathrow Airport: Post-Covid recovery still years away
