Ministers unveil plan to tackle airport crisis after fresh Heathrow disruption

UK ministers have unveiled a 22-point plan to help tackle the airport staffing crisis after a day of further cancellations at Heathrow raised anxiety over the industry’s ability to cope this summer. The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the government had set out how it was backing aviation, and it was now up to airlines and airports to set realistic schedules. Labour accused Shapps of going “missing in action” during months of turmoil since chaotic scenes at Easter, with easyJet and British Airways now having pre-emptively cancelled thousands of flights to try to ward off last-minute cancellations. On Thursday, thousands more passengers had their travel plans upset after Heathrow ordered airlines to cancel flights because it could not handle the numbers due to travel. The UK’s busiest airport made a rare “schedule intervention” on Wednesday evening, leading to 30 flights being scrapped during the Thursday morning peak. Some passengers did not find out their flights were cancelled until they arrived at Heathrow. A spokesperson for Heathrow said the airport asked airlines to remove 30 flights from the morning peak as it was expecting more passengers than it had capacity to serve. About 13% more passengers were due to fly this Thursday than a week ago, according to the spokesperson, after a surge in late bookings. He said there were enough staff in all areas across the airport to guarantee smooth journeys for the number of passengers in the morning peak, and the decision was taken to avoid unsafe queues. Most of the cancelled flights were on British Airways services. The airport has yet to recruit many of the additional 1,000 staff it sought for this summer, and passengers using Heathrow in recent weeks have experienced long queues.<br/>