London, July 12 : Heathrow airport has asked airlines to stop selling summer tickets, as it announces a cap on passengers allowed to fly from the airport.
The airport is limiting the number of passengers who can depart each day over the peak summer months to 100,000, 4,000 fewer than currently scheduled.
In view of the high number of passengers and lack of resources, the cap on passenger numbers will be in place from now until 11 September.
According to reports, airports and airlines, which cut jobs during Covid lockdowns, have struggled to recruit staff as demand for holidays has returned.
The UK is about to enter the key summer holiday season as schools begin to break up.
“Over the past few weeks, as departing passenger numbers have regularly exceeded 100,000 a day, we have started to see periods when service drops to a level that is not acceptable… Our colleagues are going above and beyond to get as many passengers away as possible, but we cannot put them at risk for their own safety and wellbeing,” said Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye.
“Even despite the amnesty, daily departing seats over the summer will average 104,000 — giving a daily excess of 4,000 seats. On average only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers.”(UNI)