Heathrow flight cap: What does airport limit mean for summer holidays?

Airport imposes unprecedented daily limit of 100,000 travellers

Departing soon? Heathrow airport’s ‘Emirates roundabout’ and a British Airways jet on the northern runway (Simon Calder)

Heathrow airport has imposed an unprecedented cap of 100,000 departing passengers each day through the summer from 12 July until 11 September 2022.

The chief executive of Britain’s biggest airport, John Holland-Kaye, says it should be achieved by airlines ceasing ticket sales on summer flights “to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey”.

These are the key questions and answers.

Was this a surprise?

It was to me. On two days so far this summer – 30 June and 11 July – Heathrow has ordered airlines to cut back on flights in an effort to relieve the pressure on airport systems.

This morning at 9am I assured a colleague that deeper cuts at the airport were unlikely. “My strong sense is that we will see occasional ad hoc one-day cancellations continuing on a fairly random basis,” I said. “But the scale of the BA cuts is now such that the problems are being solved through sheer lack of passengers.” British Airways has cut around one in five of its planned summer flights to and from Heathrow.

My response did not age well. Two hours later, Mr Holland-Kaye published an open letter in which he announced the 100k-per-day cap in order “to give better passenger journeys”.

He said: “By making this intervention now, our objective is to protect flights for the vast majority of passengers at Heathrow this summer and to give confidence that everyone who does travel through the airport will have a safe and reliable journey and arrive at their destination with their bags.

“We recognise that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled, and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected.

“Our colleagues are going above and beyond to get as many passengers away as possible, but we cannot put them at risk for their own safety and wellbeing.”

Why has the cap been imposed?

Tens of thousands of passengers have travelled without their baggage, partly due to temporary systems failures in Terminals 2 and 3. Many aircraft turnarounds have taken much longer than usual because of a shortage of staff. There have also been issues with queues for the security checkpoints.

The airport says: “We’ve recently experienced a number of challenging conditions at Heathrow that have made it difficult to maintain the quality of service for which we are world-renowned.

“We have started to see periods when service drops to a level that is not acceptable: long queue times, delays for passengers requiring assistance, bags not travelling with passengers or arriving late, low punctuality and last-minute cancellations.”

What is the normal number of passengers in summer?

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Heathrow regularly handled 110,000 departing travellers in a day – with a peak in summer 2019 of 125,000.

The airport CEO says: “The latest forecasts indicate that even despite the amnesty, daily departing seats over the summer will average 104,000 – giving a daily excess of 4,000 seats.”

Does that mean 4,000 passengers will find their flights cancelled?

Not necessarily. Mr Holland-Kaye says only around 37 per cent of those notionally “excess seats” have been sold.

“On average only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers.”

The schedule analysts OAG calculate that currently 122,200 seats departing Heathrow are on sale, making the problem rather larger than Heathrow asserts.

Airlines might choose to dispatch flights with a significant number of seats unsold – knowing that there is no restriction on inbound flying.

Or they could stop selling, as the airport suggests, and cancel departures, with passengers already booked moved to alternative flights within the limits of the cap.

I predict that, on average, between 10 and 20 departures will be cut each day.

Is there a cap on arriving passenger numbers?

No, but a reduction in flights (so airlines don’t fly half-empty planes) will have a marginal effect on availabilty for the also-canceleld inbound legs – potentially pushing up prices.

How will I know if my flight is cancelled?

Heathrow says: “If there are any flight cancellations or changes to flight details, airlines will contact their passengers directly.”

For most passengers, this will be through the normal channel of an email or text from the airline, or contact from a travel agent if that was how the booking was made.

If you booked through an online travel agent that does not provide great customer service (which is most of them, in my experience) the message may not get through. Keep checking on the airline’s website using the reservation number – which should comprise six letters/numbers and look something like A1B2C3.

Which routes might be grounded?

Airlines will be looking mainly at lightly booked short-haul departures.

While British Airways would normally be expected to bear the brunt of the airport limit, BA has grounded so many flights this summer already – around 30,000 – that it may be excused having to make more cuts.

American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus, Emirates and Lufthansa (plus its subsidiary Eurowings) are also significant users, and may have cuts impsoed.

Why don’t they move some flights to other airports?

There is plenty of space available at almost every other UK airport – including Southend, Birmingham and East Midlands.

In practice, though, it is vanishingly unlikely that any airline will move planes, pilots, cabin crew and ground operations to another airport from Heathrow. It is a hub with many connecting passengers, and connections would be much tougher if long terrestrial journeys were involved.

Can’t they just ban or restrict checked baggage?

In theory that sounds an excellent idea. Passengers could be offered a straight choice between travelling with hand luggage only or getting a full refund.

In practice, though, airlines would not countenance such a situation – and the confusion it could cause at the airport would add to the problems, not subtract from them.

What are my rights if my flight is cancelled?

Affected passengers are entitled to be flown on the same day as their original booking, on the cancelling airline – or, if that is not possible, on any airline that has a seat available. That is the view of the government and the Civil Aviation Authority. 

In practice, though, the cap on passenger numbers means this may not be feasible from Heathrow. Last time the airport mandated a cull of flights, on 11 July, it stipulated that travellers could not fly from Heathrow on the same day because of the requirement to reduce numbers.

This includes such cases as when a short-haul flight to Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt for a long-haul connection is grounded – though I daresay there might be a bit of shuffling in such circumstances, with Air France passengers quietly moved to sister airline KLM.

In principle, if a passenger from Heathrow to Barcelona has their flight cancelled, they may not be rebooked on another Heathrow flight. But they can claim their entitlement to a departure from Gatwick, Luton or Stansted to the Catalan capital on the original day of travel.

Looking long-haul, if a flight to Asia was cancelled, the passenger would have rather less choice – though Emirates from Gatwick, Stansted and even Birmingham could provide an alternative.

Do I get cash compensation?

No. Airlines – not airports – are responsible for compensating passengers for disruption. But because the cause of any cancellation is beyond the airline’s control, no cash compensation is payable.

Whose fault is all this?

Heathrow says ground handlers are “still significantly under-resourced”. These are the companies contracted by airlines to provide check-in staff, handle baggage and supervise aircraft “turns”.

The airport says: “They are doing the very best they can with the resources available, and we are giving them as much support as possible, but this is a significant constraint to the airport’s overall capacity.”

Heathrow also says that arrivals punctuality is poor “as a result of delays at other airports and in European airspace”.

What do the airlines say?

Many of them are being tight-lipped. But a Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said the airline “stands ready to deliver its full schedule this summer”.

Hinting that foreign airlines should take a fair share of the burden, they said: “We support proactive measures being taken by Heathrow to reduce disruption, as long as action proposed does not disproportionately impact home carriers at the airport.

“We look forward to seeing Heathrow’s comprehensive plan for returning to normal operations as soon as possible.”

Are other airports doing similar things?

Yes. London Gatwick, the UK’s second-busiest airport, has a cap on flight movements (as opposed to passenger numbers). The maximum is 825 per day in July and 850 in August. The latter corresponds to about 70,000 departing passengers a day.

Amsterdam Schiphol, currently western Europe’s busiest hub for flight operations, has also imposed caps.

Will this continue into the autumn and winter?

Unlikely: from early September onwards, demand for flights will fall significantly, and by the time of the next peak – around the late October half-term – more staff will be in place.

“We are all recruiting as fast as we can and aim to return to the excellent service you should expect from the UK’s hub airport as soon as possible,” says Heathrow.

Anything else?

Yes, says Heathrow. Passengers can help by doing the following:

• Arrive no earlier than three hours before the flight
• Complete Covid-19 testing and certification requirements for overseas destinations online before reaching Heathrow.
• Be ready for security with liquids, aerosols and gels of no more than 100ml each in a sealed plastic bag, and laptops out of bags.
• Use e-gates when returning through the UK Border, if they are working and you are eligible.

One more from me: be patient, and don’t take out your frustration on frontline staff (or anyone else).

“We ask you to bear with us if it takes a little longer to check in, go through security or collect your bag than you are used to at Heathrow,” says the airport.