London Heathrow has urged airlines to “step up” their investment in ground handling staff to help solve the disruption affecting aviation this summer.
The UK hub airport has capped departing passenger capacity at 100,000 per day until 11 September in a bid to cope with rising passenger numbers during the peak summer travel period.
Nigel Milton, the airport’s chief of staff and carbon, insisted Heathrow was “well run” and had prepared for the summer peak season, despite “clickbait headlines focused on travel chaos”.
He highlighted a shortage of ground handlers as a major cause of disruption to aviation, with 50 per cent of these workers leaving the industry across Europe during the pandemic.
“For months ground handling companies have been trying to recruit and train skilled workers, but if their airline customers aren’t willing to pay market rates, then they aren’t able to fill the posts,” added Milton.
“Airlines have not secured any net increase in their ground handling resource at Heathrow since January – and this has become the constraint as demand has grown.”
Milton called for airlines to improve their current operations by “stepping up investment in their ground handlers”.
“If they do that, we can then all start focusing on rebuilding Britain’s world-beating aviation sector and getting back to giving our passengers the service they deserve,” he argued.
Willie Walsh, director general of airlines association IATA, has repeatedly criticised Heathrow in recent weeks for not being better prepared for increased passenger numbers this summer and also “under-estimating” the scale and speed of the recovery in travel demand.
Meanwhile, London's Gatwick Airport has recruited more than 400 new security staff ahead of the busy summer season as it works to reduce security delays.
“We are doing everything possible to make the airport process as smooth as possible, including recruiting and training hundreds of new security staff, many of whom have already started or will be in coming weeks," said Adrian Witherow, chief operating officer, Gatwick Airport.