Heathrow to stop airlines adding extra flights in summer peak

Heathrow airport will stop airlines adding extra flights to their schedules during the peak summer season in a new effort to avoid travel disruption hitting passengers. The hub airport has agreed scheduling limits with carriers to control the numbers of passengers moving through the airport during the busiest periods, according to a document filed with the UK’s slot co-ordinator. Such limits, which stop carriers from adding new flights if spare slots become available as the summer progresses, are designed to create a “firewall” to “protect the operations” of the airport, the document says, rather than “allow additional peaks to be created”. Passengers suffered a wave of disruption across many European airports last year as the industry struggled to hire enough staff after travel rules relaxed. Heathrow imposed a controversial cap on passenger numbers last summer to avoid last-minute disruption and delays, triggering a dispute with carriers after it asked them to stop selling tickets for flights that had already been scheduled. However, this summer’s scheduling limits have been agreed with airlines and will not affect their planned schedules. Heathrow CE John Holland-Kaye said the airport would be busier than 2019 on some days this year, but that he expected operations to run smoothly after a recruitment drive. He added that the slot limits were a “normal thing to do . . . so that you do not put too much pressure on the system”. Heathrow said on Thursday that passenger numbers had more than trebled in 2022 to 66mn following the removal of travel restrictions in Q1 of the year. It said this growth had been higher than any other airport globally following the return of mass travel, but conceded it “was challenging operationally”.<br/>