Emirates and London Heathrow have agreed to work together after the airline initially refused to co-operate with the airport’s demand for capacity to be reduced.
The Dubai-based carrier issued a strongly worded statement on Thursday (14 July) condemning Heathrow’s requirement for airlines to immediately reduce capacity as “unreasonable and unacceptable”.
But Tim Clark, president of Emirates, and Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye held a “constructive meeting” at the end of last week.
“Emirates agreed the airline was ready and willing to work with the airport to remediate the situation over the next two weeks, to keep demand and capacity in balance and provide passengers with a smooth and reliable journey through Heathrow this summer,” said Clark and Holland-Kaye in a joint statement.
“Emirates has capped further sales on its flights out of Heathrow until mid-August to assist Heathrow in its resource ramp-up and is working to adjust capacity.
“In the meantime, Emirates flights from Heathrow operate as scheduled and ticketed passengers may travel as booked.”
Heathrow has decided to cap capacity at 100,000 departing passengers per day until 11 September as it struggles to recruit enough staff to deal with a post-Covid surge in traffic this summer.