India-London Flight Schedules Affected After Heathrow Airport Caps Passenger Numbers. Details Here

Several flights operating from India to London and vice-versa have been cancelled and rescheduled by airlines after Heathrow airport announced daily limit on passenger numbers.

New Delhi: The flight schedules between India and London have been affected following Heathrow Airport’s cap on daily passenger numbers. Many airlines were forced to cancel and reschedule several flights between India-London. Britain’s busiest airport on Tuesday said that it’s setting a limit of 100,000 passengers that it can handle each day through September 11.

Several India-London flights cancelled, rescheduled – Key points

• Virgin Atlantic, which is based at Heathrow, on Thursday cancelled London-Delhi morning flight, according to a report by Business Standard.
• Air India also rescheduled its flight between London and Ahmedabad.
• British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Vistara and Air India operate several flights between India and UK on a daily basis.
• Around 33 flights of Air India operates from India to Heathrow Airport in a week.

Heathrow airport’s cap on passengers – What do we know so far

• Thousands of passengers have been hit by airport disruption and flight cancellations in the UK, raising concerns of additional travel woes during the summer. Amidst this, Heathrow airport announced that airlines are expected to operate flights over the summer with an overall daily capacity of 104,000 seats, or 4,000 more than Heathrow can handle. Only about 1,500 of the 4,000 extra daily seats have been sold to passengers.
• Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye, open letter to passengers, said, “Some airlines have taken significant action, but others have not, and we believe that further action is needed now to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey.”
• “However, there are some critical functions in the airport which are still significantly under-resourced, in particular ground handlers, who are contracted by airlines to provide check-in staff, load and unload bags and turnaround aircraft,” making it a “significant constraint” to overall capacity, Holland-Kaye said, news agency The Associated Press reported.
• Booming demand for summer travel after two years of COVID-19 travel restrictions have overwhelmed European airlines and airports that had laid off tens of thousands of pilots, cabin crew, check-in staff, ground crew and baggage handlers amid the depths of the pandemic.
• One of the main reason behind the disruptions was staff shortages. Heathrow Airport said it started a recruiting drive in November and expects security staffing to be back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of July.
• UK aviation authorities demanded that airlines ensure they can operate without disruption over the summer, with carriers not punished for not using their valuable takeoff and landing slots. They were responding to chaotic airport scenes as passengers complained about long lineups at security, lost luggage and lengthy flight delays.

Emirates blasts Heathrow airport on passenger limit, how other airlines reacted

Emirates airline blasted one of the world’s busiest airports for its “incompetence” in failing to handle a surge in passengers. The Dubai-based airline on Thursday slammed demands made by London’s Heathrow airport earlier this week that carriers stop selling any more tickets for this summer, CNN reported. The airline, which operates six daily flights from Heathrow, has rejected the new limits and called them “entirely unreasonable and unacceptable”, CNN reported.

British Airways, the airline with the biggest presence at Heathrow, has already cut 11 per cent of its scheduled flights between April and October.

Virgin Atlantic said it’s “ready to deliver its full schedule this summer” but supported the airport’s “proactive measures” to reduce disruption, as long they don’t have an outsized impact on its home carriers.

Other European airports have imposed similar caps this summer. London’s Gatwick has limited daily flight numbers, while Amsterdam’s Schiphol cut its maximum daily passenger numbers by 13,500.

Brief: Several flights operating from India to London and vice-versa have been cancelled and rescheduled by airlines after Heathrow airport announced limit on daily passenger numbers.