The UK’s hub airport Heathrow says that business travel remains “suppressed”, despite the relaxation of many international travel rules.
Heathrow said 2021 was its “worst year” in its history with passenger numbers only reaching 19.4 million, the lowest level since 1972 and down from 22.1 million passengers in 2020. As a comparison, the airport handled 80.9 million passengers in 2019 before the start of the pandemic.
The airport blamed this traffic reduction on the UK having tighter Covid-19 travel rules than EU countries last year, which meant it was the only major European hub airport to see passenger numbers fall compared with 2020.
Heathrow added that while outbound leisure traffic had been boosted by the UK government’s removal of travel rules in recent weeks, business travel remained “suppressed” due to continued testing requirements in other countries.
“63 per cent of our markets retain some form of travel restriction or testing requirements, and government responses to Omicron show how uncertain broader travel demand remains,” said Heathrow as it announced its financial results for 2021.
“We don’t expect travel to return to pre-pandemic levels until all restrictions have been removed, passengers can travel with no checks and are confident they will not be reimposed.”
Despite the fall in passenger numbers, Heathrow managed to increase revenue by 3.3 per cent to £1.2 billion in 2021, compared with £1.17 billion in 2020, as well as reducing its pre-tax loss from £2 billion in 2020 to £1.8 billion last year.
Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “While 2021 was the worst year in Heathrow's history, I am very proud of the way that colleagues focused on passengers, and we were able to maintain our position as one of the top 10 airports in the world for service.
“Demand is now starting to recover and we are working closely with airlines to scale-up our operations and reopen Terminal 4 for the summer travel peak.”
Despite the uptick in leisure travel, Heathrow’s passenger numbers are still currently 23 per cent behind its forecast for 2022, due to lower traffic in January and February.
Heathrow still expects to reach its target of 45.5 million passengers this year due to a strong summer leisure market.