London Heathrow enjoyed its busiest month for more than two years in May, reaching 79 per cent of May 2019’s traffic levels.
The UK’s hub airport catered for 5.3 million passengers in May – its busiest month since March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic first took hold.
Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye said the airport was continuing to “make good progress” with its plans to increase capacity this summer.
The airport stressed that 90 per cent of passengers were able to pass through security within 10 minutes during May, despite headlines about long queues and cancelled flights at many UK airports in recent weeks.
Heathrow added that the number of flights cancelled at short notice during the busy Jubilee half-term holiday week was no higher than on “any normal day”.
“We are working closely with airlines and government to keep supply and demand in balance as we grow, so that passengers can travel through Heathrow this summer with confidence,” said Holland-Kaye.
He also again called for the CAA to allow the airport to increase its passenger charges, which are regulated by the UK’s aviation authority – a move that is fiercely opposed by airlines.
“We now need a regulatory settlement from the CAA that protects service and resilience levels, incentivises investment and maintains affordable private financing,” added Holland-Kaye.
“Failure to invest risks degrading passenger experience at a time when it has never been more important for operations to ramp up smoothly.”
The next stage in Heathrow’s recovery plan will see the reopening of Terminal 4 on Tuesday (14 June) with Qatar Airways set to be the first carrier to move back to the terminal.