London Heathrow airport expects demand to “remain uncertain” in the coming months, as the UK hub prepares to remove its daily cap on passengers at the end of October.
Heathrow said it had been the “busiest European hub” over the summer, despite having a daily 100,000 cap on departing passengers in place since the middle of July.
The airport catered for just under 5.8 million passengers in September, although this was still 15 per cent below the same month in 2019. Heathrow’s passenger numbers rose by 335 per cent year-on-year to 44.2 million for the first nine months including 18 million during the summer period.
“Demand outlook remains uncertain, with growing economic headwinds, a new wave of Covid and the escalating situation in Ukraine,” said Heathrow in its latest trading update.
“Resource levels across the airport, airlines and their ground handlers have been increasing and we can now remove the cap at the end of the month. We are working with our airline partners to develop a more targeted mechanism, which protects passenger service during peak periods.”
Heathrow said that its focus over the next 12 months was to “get capacity, service levels and resilience back to the high levels that they were before the pandemic”. But the airport warned that this recovery relied on “having a regulatory settlement that provides enough cash flow to invest in our operations and capital projects”.
John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s CEO, added: “Heathrow has grown more in the past 12 months than any airport in Europe and we’ve delivered a great passenger experience to the vast majority of travellers.
“While we face many economic headwinds, as well as the legacy of Covid, our aim is to get back to full capacity and the world class service people should expect from the UK’s hub airport as soon as possible.”